Child Maintenance Service - Head of Service Applications and Maintenance

This is an exciting time to be joining CMS as we continue with our ambitious programme of service modernisation. As Head of Service, you will have a critical role alongside three colleagues in providing strategic leadership with accountability for all aspects service delivery, people plans and embedding significant change including digitalisation and demand deduction.
The successful candidate will be responsible for:
+ Providing inspirational and resourceful leadership to a large team of up to 1,000 colleagues, across several locations through direct line management of Senior Operational Leaders (G7's), in a complex, fast paced operational environment to deliver a quality service. This will include workforce planning, resource deployment, capability plans and all aspect of performance management to meet service level requirements.
+ Leading through a period of accelerated change for the organisation and have an influential role is shaping the strategic direction, communicated to colleagues through our CMS Story – enabling a digital transformation programme that delivers increased efficiency and service improvements and supporting the design and implementation of a new organisational model.
+ Demonstrating visible leadership through a commitment to people engagement and driving cultural change by empowering others to develop, you will be expected to continue establishing a culture of continuous improvement through remote line management across multiple sites.
+ Lead accountability for specific customer segments providing vision and reporting up to the CMS Executive Team, Director General and Minister i.e., Applications, Maintenance, Benefits and Telephony and Portfolios i.e., Quality.
+ There may be a requirement to lead one of our Service Centres in a sponsorship role.
+ As this role covers various locations across the UK, you will be expected to commit to frequent travel., We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
+ Leadership
+ Managing a Quality Service
+ Changing and Improving
+ Making Effective Decisions

Benefits
+ Working for DWP will include benefits such as learning and development tailored to your role, an environment with flexible working options, a culture encouraging inclusion and diversity and a Civil Service pension Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%.
+ CMS is committed to the Wellbeing of all colleagues, support includes Wellbeing conversations, dedicated Wellbeing Advocates in each Service Centre to develop and deliver health and wellbeing initiatives and our own Intranet site offering a wealth of information, guidance and support.
+ We Value Everybody is one of our five Core Values here in CMS. We have active National Network Groups for Race, Disability, Carers, Wellbeing, Faith & Belief and Age. Our monthly People Group meeting draws these groups together to listen, act, and update CMS Directors with our plans.
+ CMS Colleagues have the opportunity to join HASSRA, a vibrant and successful organisation that provides a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly). It also has an important part to play in helping us achieve a healthy work-life balance and wellbeing in the workplace.
+ Working hours - The contracted working hours for the Department are 07:45 hours to 20:00 hours, Monday to Friday, and 08:45 hours to 17:00 hours on Saturday. Employees are contracted to work a specific number of hours per week within the above times. Employees will be required to work the number of hours per week for which they are contracted. For example, for full time employees this will be 37 hours net (42 hours gross including meal breaks). For part-time employees it will be less., Your Personal Statement should contain no more than 1250 words. The layout is entirely your choice, you may choose narrative, bullets, etc. You may choose to address each criterion separately; however, one narrative example may cover and evidence several of the criteria. Please share with us what makes you suited to this role. We would like to find out what you can do, the skills you hold and the life experience or passion that you have that could be aligned to the criteria listed within the Person Specification.
The CV is an on-line tool, there is no requirement to upload your personal CV. When giving details of your employment history, you should include details of work you have completed and projects you have been involved in. However the CV is not scored so please put the main content of your evidence and skills in your Personal Statement.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING ANONYMISATION
Due to the DWP’s use of anonymised recruitment practices it is not possible for applicants to upload/attach a CV; any information that you would customarily share on a CV should therefore be entered onto the application form.
When entering information relating to your employment history you will be asked to remove any personal details that could be used to identify you. This relates to name and contact details which might usually appear on your CV/Personal statement. Failure to do so will result in your application being withdrawn.
Sift
The sift panel will use the information in your Personal Statement to assess your experience, skills and knowledge against the essential Criteria outlined in the advert.
Should a large number of applications be received, an initial sift may be conducted using the Lead Criteria:
+ Inspirational and resourceful leadership with a proven track record of leading large teams over 100+ colleagues, making a strong personal impact, demonstrating resilience to deliver against key performance measures timeously and accurately. (Lead Criteria)
Candidates who pass the initial sift will be progressed to a full sift where all applications will be assessed and sifted against all the essential criteria outlined in the advert.
Please note depending on the volume of applications we may choose to invite candidates straight to interview and dispense with the sift stage. For this reason, the timeline for the interview window is subject to change depending on the approach we choose to take.
Stage 2: Interview
Unless you are otherwise informed, the final stage of the process will be a face to face blended interview
and the whole process should take approximately 30-40 minutes.
A blended interview aims to be more of a conversation at interview, offering a more inclusive approach.
The Strength and Behaviour based questioning explores what the candidate can and has done, but also their potential.
The Behaviours being assessed at interview are:
+ Leadership (Lead Behaviour)
+ Managing a Quality Service
+ Changing and Improving
+ Making Effective Decisions
Please refer to the Candidate Pack for further information.
Approximate sift and interview dates:
Sift Period: 28/10/24 - 01/11/24
Interviews: 12/11/204 - 22/11/24
Sift and Interview dates are subject to change.
Further information:
Find out more about Working for DWP
A reserve list may be held for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made.
Any move to DWP 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
If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check may be carried out., + 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.

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).

Apply and further information
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.
The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).
Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

This is what you will be assessed against, and should align your personal statement to. Your evidence will be assessed against the following essential criteria. You must ensure you provide specific examples to demonstrate these criteria in your personal statement. Candidates will be able to demonstrate the following:
+ Inspirational and resourceful leadership with a proven track record of leading large teams over 100+ colleagues, making a strong personal impact, demonstrating resilience to deliver against key performance measures timeously and accurately. (Lead Criteria)
+ Excellent communication abilities with proven experience of influencing and motivating people at all levels.
+ Confidence managing senior stakeholder relationships, including delivering various communications to a high standard to an array of stakeholders including Ministers, Senior Leaders, and Trade Union.
+ Ability to understand and lead change, inspiring and obtaining commitment from colleagues by encouraging discussion, innovation, and ideas in support of long-term organisational vision.
+ Ability to understand and lead transformational change including channel shift and moving demand into digital services, inspiring and obtaining commitment from colleagues by encouraging discussion, innovation, and ideas in support of long-term organisational vision.
+ A passion for building high performing teams, actively promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace to drive an inclusive learning culture and create opportunities for all.
+ Experience of driving excellent customer service, particularly in a telephony environment, ensuring service standards fully meet client expectations by challenging and improving processes.
+ Ability to identify, interpret and analyse information, including MI, and other data to identify areas for action, key risks, and performance hot spots., Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Family separation is never easy. The Child Maintenance Service helps parents, who are unable to make a private financial agreement in support of their child(ren)’s living costs, ensure and at times enforce, the legal responsibility to provide financial support. Our mission is to ‘get money to children’ because it makes a real difference to children’s lives. Child Maintenance Service is not only undergoing a significant period of change as we drive forward our transformation agenda, but in tandem, we continue to deliver a politically significant and fundamentally crucial service to millions of separated families around the country who depend upon the work we do. Our story over the last two years is one of impressive progress and improvement. Despite the progress we’ve made, we are unashamedly ambitious about what more we can achieve and the difference we can make for the families who need us. Child Maintenance Service is an amazing place to work. Walk into any one of our service
centres and you will be overwhelmed by the passion and commitment that our people have for supporting our customers.