Head of EU and Northern Ireland VAT and Excise policy

Are you looking for an opportunity to work with ministers and senior figures across Government and beyond to shape and drive HM Treasury's high-profile tax agenda? If so, then we'd love to hear from you!

About the Team

The VAT and Excise Team is a lively, flexible, friendly team at the heart of HM Treasury’s tax agenda. We provide ministers with advice on VAT, insurance premium tax, alcohol duties, tobacco duties, gambling taxes and the Soft Drinks Industry Levy. Together, these raise around £200 billion a year. We lead significant numbers of measures in fiscal events and generates a large amount of Chancellor and external interest.

About the Job

Your responsibilities will be subject to Ministerial responsibilities and the needs of the wider team.

You will lead:

• Ongoing work relating to Northern Ireland and the implementation of the Windsor Framework. Following the announcement of the Framework last year, we have now moved into a phase of ongoing and dynamic negotiations across European Union (EU) and UK priority policies to ensure that the principles in the framework are upheld and the UK (including Northern Ireland) can get the maximum benefit from new freedoms.
• Wider international strategy work including feeding into wider Treasury work with the International Monetary Fund, United Nations and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and bilateral cooperation.

You will oversee work by others covering:

• Our relationship with the EU as a trading partner. This includes upholding our obligations under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement as well as scoping new and potential policy interventions for their impact on UK-EU trade, as well as resolving legacy issues relating EU Exit.
• Emerging devolution matters including the announced plans for Scottish VAT assignment and ad-hoc issues relating to the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories.

About You

This role will suit you if you have excellent relationship-building skills, and strong presentation and negotiation skills. You should be able to pitch and plan sensitive conversations, manage tricky dynamics and present efficiently to an external audience. You should be a strategic thinker, with the ability to proactively map and define your own work, as well as good reactive problem-solving in complex and technical areas. In addition, you should have strong written and verbal communication skills to explain issues clearly, concisely, and persuasively to a range of audiences including drafting high-quality correspondence and media lines.

Some of the Benefits our people love!

• 25 days annual leave (rising to 30 after 5 years), plus 8 public holidays and the King’s birthday (unless you have a legacy arrangement as an existing Civil Servant). Additionally, we operate flexitime systems, allowing employees to take up to an additional 2 days off each month
• Flexible working patterns (part-time, job-share, condensed hours)
• Generous parental and adoption leave packages
• Access to a generous Defined Benefit pension scheme with employer contributions of 28%
•  Access to a cycle-to-work salary sacrifice scheme and season ticket advances
• A range of active staff networks, based around interests (e.g. analysts, music society, sports and social club) and diversity

For more information about the role and how to apply, please follow the apply link.

If you need any reasonable adjustments to take part in the selection process, please tell us about this in your online application form, or speak to the recruitment team.