Bristol, Darlington, Leeds, Manchester, Wolverhampton Job Summary Are you comfortable working with data, from gathering and analysis, through to design and presentation? Do you enjoy building constructive working relationships with internal and external stakeholders? If so, we have an exciting opportunity for a Senior Digital Policy Advisor, Digital Planning Programme to join our team at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and we'd love to hear from you! This is an exciting role working on the department’s strategic policy agenda for digital planning reform. The Digital Planning Programme is a high-profile policy area on the Government Major Projects Portfolio, supporting the digital transformation of the planning system. The programme includes one of the Prime Minister’s ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI) Exemplar’ projects and is exploring the use of AI to improve the planning system. The role sits in the Policy, Engagement and Legislation team within the Digital Planning Programme. The team supports programme outcomes on planning data, modern planning software, digital citizen engagement and local plans. You will work with a broad range of stakeholders across government, along with policy leads across the department, to design and shape cross-cutting policies, including AI policy. You will also provide leadership on digital planning strategy to ensure ownership and buy in with those delivering policy outcomes, building the mandate for digital planning reform. Job Description Your responsibilities will include: Provide high quality support to Ministers and senior leaders on the digital planning and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) AI agenda, including through verbal and written advice, events and other ad-hoc policy requests as required. As a subject matter in AI policy, ensure all programme products related to its AI policy, including briefings, cross-government commissions and submissions, lines to take etc, are effectively produced and tailored to the audience and purpose. Support the gathering, analysis and evaluation of evidence to support AI adoption in planning and ensure robustness and reliability, informing sound policy and business case recommendations. Work closely with multidisciplinary agile digital teams to overcome barriers to delivery progress and ensure that product and strategy roadmaps are well aligned. Lead on the programme’s Monitoring and Evaluation work. Your Responsibilities Will Include Provide high quality support to Ministers and senior leaders on the digital planning and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) AI agenda, including through verbal and written advice, events and other ad-hoc policy requests as required. As a subject matter in AI policy, ensure all programme products related to its AI policy, including briefings, cross-government commissions and submissions, lines to take etc, are effectively produced and tailored to the audience and purpose. Support the gathering, analysis and evaluation of evidence to support AI adoption in planning and ensure robustness and reliability, informing sound policy and business case recommendations. Work closely with multidisciplinary agile digital teams to overcome barriers to delivery progress and ensure that product and strategy roadmaps are well aligned. Lead on the programme’s Monitoring and Evaluation work. Person specification Experience in providing high quality written briefings on AI and technology for senior leaders Experience of working on AI, Digital and Data policy work. A demonstrated ability to convey complex issues of using AI in a clear and accurate way, both verbally and in writing Experience of strategic technology policy development leadership Evidence of strong problem solving and analytical skills Effective collaboration and stakeholder management skills Alongside your salary of £54,531, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government contributes £15,797 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides. Learning and development tailored to your role An environment with flexible working options A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97% Selection process details Artificial Intelligence Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use. CV Declaration As part of our pre-employment checking process, we will be using your CV to confirm your job history. Please note that by providing us with your CV you are consenting to us using the information enclosed as part of the checking process. Unless stated otherwise in the advert, your CV will not form part of the assessment but will be used for information purposes and only shared with the panel at interview stage. Our application system is designed to remove as much bias as possible from the recruitment system – this means that a hiring manager does not know your name, your details, see your whole application in one go (or have your CV at review stage unless stated otherwise). Your answers are randomised and chunked up. This means that each assessor views sets of responses to each question rather than seeing a candidate’s full application. The science behind this is that recruitment can be subject to ordering and fatigue effects and we want to reduce this as much as possible. Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that each of your answers would be viewed by different assessors. When Writing Your Application, Remember the assessor won’t be reading your answers sequentially do not assume that the same assessors will have read all of your answers if talking about something in your first answer, make sure that you write the second answer as if you had not written the first (and so on!) At sift, we will be assessing Lead Question - Experience: Please show how you have advised senior officials and/or ministers on how technology can improve policy delivery and/or public services?" Behaviour 1 Seeing The Bigger Picture Behaviour 2 Communicating and Influencing Behaviour 3 Making Effective Decisions There is a 250 word limit per question. In the event that we receive a large number of applications, we may conduct an initial sift using the lead behaviour listed in the advert. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift or progressed straight to assessment/interview. The interview will be of a blended nature consisting of the following Success Profile elements: Behaviours: Seeing The Big Picture, Changing and Improving, Making Effective Decisions, Communicating and Influencing. Experience: Experience questions will be based around the essential skills and criteria as listed in the job description Strengths: The strength-based questions will require natural responses from the candidates. Candidates will be asked to prepare a 5-minute presentation, further details will be provided on invitation to interview. In the full campaign we will test the below Success Profile elements: Behaviours: Seeing The Big Picture, Changing and Improving, Making Effective Decisions, Communicating and Influencing. Experience: Yes Strengths: Yes We do not consider direct CV applications to our Recruitment mailbox – you must apply for this role via the application link on Civil Service Jobs Please note that near miss offers may be made at the lower grade to candidates who do not meet the grade criteria for this campaign. Grade 7 Salary The salary for this role is £54,531 (National). For existing civil servants, the usual policy on level transfer and promotion will apply and is non-negotiable. If you apply for a role that requires a transfer of location, for example if you are transferring from London to a National location, your salary will be adjusted in accordance with our policy on transfer between HQ pay ranges. Please note that the average employer pension contribution is based upon the National minimum salary for this role. Should your agreed starting salary for this role be different, the average employer pension contribution will be calculated accordingly. If you are a Secondee, this will not apply as you will remain on your home organisation’s terms and conditions. Benefits Transfers across the Civil Service on or after 4 October 2018: Any move to MHCLG from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk For further information about the benefits available to MHCLG employees, please see the attached Candidate Pack. Location Wolverhampton Darlington* Bristol Manchester There may be opportunities for candidates to work flexibly depending on the business needs. This will be discussed with the vacancy manager on a case-by-case basis if you are successful for the role. Please note: The Darlington Economic Campus (DEC) is a pioneering new cross-government hub which will bring together people across departments and public organisations to play an active role in the most important economic issues of the day. The work of the Campus will make a real difference to people both across the UK and internationally. There will be substantial career opportunities and exciting prospects - a career at the Campus means you will be working at the heart of Government, with access to the benefits and fantastic opportunities offered by the civil service. For further information on the DEC, please take a look at the attached DEC candidate pack. Sift and Interview Dates Sifting is envisaged to take place w/c 22/09 with interview dates to be confirmed. All interviews are currently being held remotely via videocall. Reserve List In the event that we identify more appointable candidates than we currently have posts available, we will hold applicant details in a reserve list for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. This may include roles at a lower grade. Candidates placed on a reserve list will be informed of this. Those candidates who do not wish to remain on the reserve list should contact recruitment@communities.gov.uk to be removed from the reserve list. Security Clearance Requirements Important note Please note that successful candidates will need to pass the CTC security checks – this requires you to have been resident in the UK for the past 3 years. Please refer to the MHCLG Notes on Security Clearance section of our Candidate Pack for further information on Counter Terrorism Clearance (CTC). Candidates should also note that with effect from 1st August 2018 the department will also check all applicants who are successful at interview, against the Internal Fraud Database (IFD) held by the Cabinet Office. In accordance with the Civil Service Internal Fraud Policy, any applicant who is included on the IFD will be refused employment by MHCLG. Please see the Candidate Pack for further information on the Internal Fraud Database. Candidate Pack Information Please see attached Candidate pack for further information. The candidate pack contains information about the CS Commissioners appeals and complaints procedure. Before starting your application it’s very important to make sure that you are eligible to apply and meet the Civil Service nationality requirements. All candidates are expected to read the information provided in the MHCLG candidate pack regarding nationality requirements and rules Internal Fraud Database The Internal Fraud function of the Fraud, Error, Debt and Grants Function at the Cabinet Office processes details of civil servants who have been dismissed for committing internal fraud, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned. The Cabinet Office receives the details from participating government organisations of civil servants who have been dismissed, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned, for internal fraud. In instances such as this, civil servants are then banned for 5 years from further employment in the civil service. The Cabinet Office then processes this data and discloses a limited dataset back to MHCLG as a participating government organisations. MHCLG then carry out the pre employment checks so as to detect instances where known fraudsters are attempting to reapply for roles in the civil service. In this way, the policy is ensured and the repetition of internal fraud is prevented. For more information please see - Internal Fraud Register Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment. Security Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check (opens in a new window).See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks. Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check (opens in a new window).See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks. Nationality requirements This Job Is Broadly Open To The Following Groups UK nationals nationals of the Republic of Ireland nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window) nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020 Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window) Working for the Civil Service The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants. We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy. The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants. We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy. Diversity and Inclusion The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window). This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative. Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records. Contact point for applicants Job Contact Name : Razeeb Ahasan Email : razeeb.ahasan@communities.gov.uk Recruitment team Email : recruitment@communities.gov.uk