Deputy Director, Public Sector Reform

Public sector reform is a top priority for the Cabinet Office and the whole of government, and this unit is being set up at pace to deliver on this ambitious agenda to rewire the state and place public services on a sustainable footing with people at the centre. We are an inclusive and collaborative team, where new ideas and innovation are key to success and where diversity of thought and constructive challenge is celebrated and hugely valued.

We are looking for an inclusive, dynamic and deeply collaborative leader to support the creation of a reform agenda. This agenda is grounded in services designed around people, including freedoms for front line workers, needs of place and a prevention-first approach.

The successful candidate for this role will lead a team of fifteen delivering on public sector reform and so will have significant line management and leadership responsibility, including supporting the set up and shape of a new directorate, establishing a culture where feedback and empowerment of all staff is prioritised, and creating flexible and integrated ways of working with key public service departments, local authorities and input from the frontline.

Key Responsibilities of the role will include:

Setting up and evolving a team over a 1-2 year period to both establish a clear vision for central government, while ensuring the team has robustness and the capability to respond to new challenges in an uncertain environment. Includes experience with change management and strong track record of working with all abilities and skill levels across multiple disciplines, including with operational or delivery teams. The successful candidate will prioritise diversity and inclusivity, including creating a space within the team to foster diversity of thought and creativity to challenges. There is a strong premium placed on learning and development, particularly drawing on external stakeholder engagement on the public sector reform agenda. Experience of working with local government and frontline services and bringing in perspectives from a place-based level to central government policy design will be vital.

A core component of the role will be supporting the development of an overarching public sector reform narrative and cross-cutting measures to feed into the Spending Review and lay the groundwork to enable more focus on prevention in future spending reviews. The successful candidate will have specific policy expertise on social policy areas like health, social care, special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), reoffending, as they will be assessing specific measures in these areas and a long term programme design of a prevention strategy.