People Fire Safety Strategy Lead

The Home Office works to build a safe, fair and prosperous UK. We achieve this through our work on counter-terrorism, policing, fire, crime, drugs policy, immigration and passports. Corporate and Delivery Directorate works closely with the Home Office's policy and operational commands to enable us together to deliver the department's priorities. The directorate is comprised of different teams and professional functions, including Commercial, Finance, People, Portfolio and Project Delivery, Security, Estates and Information and Digital, Data and Technology. The People Fire Safety Strategy Lead is a high-profile brand-new role that will sit inside the People Safety Team (PST). The successful candidate will lead a team of 13 fire safety professionals and be a key driver in building a best practice fire safety management system across the Home Office. Given the size, complexity and high profile work of the Department, the Fire Safety Strategy Lead will need to work and collaboratively with our stakeholders and be innovative and forward-leaning. If you are a strong leader and Fire Safety Professional who is committed to developing a strong people fire safety and fire asset management and work with colleagues across the Department to deliver our new Health and Safety Strategy to ensure we meet our legal obligations as an employer under UK fire legislation and keep our staff and customers safe we would love to hear from you. The Home Office People Safety Team (PST) is a centre of excellence sitting within the Home Office Property Services (HOPS) inside Corporate and Delivery Directorate that is accountable for People Safety in terms of policy, audit and training. The Department's aspiration is to build a stronger organisation with a safety-first approach that prioritises a safety culture of excellence and a management system. To help us deliver this we are developing our new Health and Safety Strategy 2025-27 "Thinking Safe, Working Safe and Home Safe Every Day". As a technical subject matter expert on fire safety management, you will have the ability to monitor and assess proposed new/amended fire legislation and codes of practice for relevance to Home Office's estate and service delivery. You will deputise for the Head of Unit, at senior boards, forums and committees when the Head of People Safety is absent and act as joint Silver Command, along with the People Health and Safety Strategy Lead, to ensure safe and effective evacuations 24/7, 365 days a year. As part of the Gold/ Silver/ Bronze Command and Control structure you will have delegated authority to partially or fully close buildings in accordance with UK Fire legislation. This will require some out of hours and on call working. To help you fulfil this you will be trained on managing critical incident, and HO scenario crisis/incident management. You will be a strong leader with a proven record of engaging others, building and maintaining successful and productive working relationships with stakeholders and delivery partners, including customers and trade unions, you will also be able to organise and manage own workload, be self-motivated and confident. You will be someone who is a strong communicator who works collaboratively with stakeholders and the Head of People Safety is always appropriately briefed to represent the Department at a number of key boards and Committees, including The Executive Committee, the People Committee and The Audit and Risk Committee (ARAC), on a quarterly rhythm. What you will be doing day to day:

• You will lead a team of 13 fire safety professionals, including direct and indirect reports, to focus on building their capability to deliver the Department's vision and strategy.
• You will support and drive the strategic function via Health and Safety Transformation for the set up and management of the overarching 'Fire Safety Management System' including governance, reporting, systems, and controls to ensure fire safety risks. You will drive new fire systems by collaborating and working in partnership with our data partners and stakeholders on the digitalisation transformation programme.
• You will be accountable for ensuring fire safety initiatives are included within the Communications and Engagement Plan. You will act as the fire lead auditor and lead on inspection visits and audit programmes, and ensuring accepted recommendations are adopted.
• You will support the Head of People Safety on the day to day running of the unit and lead the team to deliver the day-to-day functions of the team ensuring the team rollouts out and manages Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for people fire safety across core buildings and share best practice with wider Department.
• You will hold responsibilities relating to fire safety and the Reporting Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR) as appointed and in line with duty holder and responsibilities matrices.
Working pattern Due to the business requirements of this role, it is only available on a full-time basis. However, compressed hours is available.