Head of Directors Office

Job summary

Do you thrive in a fast-paced environment?

Do you have excellent organisational and communication skills?

Would you like to work at the heart of local transport, working closely with senior officials and high-level stakeholders, acting as a critical point of contact and supporting the wider work of the directorate?

If so, we’d love to hear from you!

The Local Passenger Transport & Inclusion (LPT&I) Directorate is right at the heart of the Department’s business and plays a key role in meeting the Department’s strategic aims. Our focus is on people – making their experience of transport better, breaking down the barriers to great journeys and leading the way in DfT in putting people at the heart of how we plan, build and operate transport. The local transport network connects people and places, driving local economies and creating opportunities for employment, education and economic growth everywhere.

Within LPT&I we work flexibly to ensure we can deliver against the government’s ambitious plans to improve local passenger transport and so we can collectively and proactively address emerging issues.

Joining our department comes with many benefits, including:

• Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary. Read more about Civil Service Pensions here
• 25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave), plus 8 bank holidays a privilege day for the King’s birthday
• Flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance.

Read more in the Benefits section below!

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Job description

The role of Head of Directors Office is a fast paced role that provides plenty of opportunity for development. You will play a critical role as a key point of contact in the office of two Directors within PTLG. You will form a wide network of effective relationships and gain experience of working with senior officials and high-level stakeholders. You will also be head of the PA team, providing line management, leadership and support.

Your responsibilities will include, but aren’t limited to:

• You will regularly assess the two Directors priorities proactively engaging with them to prioritise their time, developing and maintaining action lists to ensure they are focused on the right issues and enabling them to make effective decisions in a timely manner to provide strategic leadership across the directorate and help teams deliver ministerial and public priorities across high profile and demanding policy portfolios.

• You will build up an excellent understanding of the Directors priorities to understand what activity they wish to prioritise and you will work closely with the Diary Manager to the Directors triaging emails, correspondence and meeting invites that come into their individual mailboxes to sort them into folders for action or information. You will flag high priority and urgent items that require the Directors attention, effectively delegate to Deputy Directors or their teams and filter out or redirect other items. You will ensure that there are clear systems in place to record information effectively.

• You will quickly build up an excellent understanding of the key internal and external stakeholders and work closely with them to build high quality working relationships.

• You will deal quickly and effectively with ad hoc requests from the Directors and Senior Leadership Team and work closely with the Deputy Head of INSPIRED to help ensure the smooth running of the directorate and corporate priorities wherever necessary.
• You will identify, clarify and where possible manage and resolve issues coming to the Directors’ office before escalation – if there is an issue, you will act as the initial focus and filtration point; ensuring that relevant information and advice is highlighted and communicated in a timely manner.
• You will support the organisation of directorate level staff engagements. Such as producing agendas for directorate level events; ensuring events are innovative, diverse and inclusive; liaising with speakers and ensuring necessary logistics are in place.

• Working closely with the Deputy Head of INSPIRED, you will lead the organisation of Senior Leadership Team meetings preparing meeting agendas, papers and providing secretariat support where necessary. This includes proactively managing a forward look and other key meeting documentation.

• You will have line management responsibility for 1 x EO Diary Manager and 3 x EO Personal Assistants, who support the two Directorate’s Deputy Directors.

Great line management is important to us as an organisation, and we will equip and support line managers to develop the skills set out in the Civil Service Line Management Standards.

Colleagues are expected to work with a degree of flexibility, meaning responsibilities may change to support priority delivery.

For further information on the role, please read the attached role profile. Please note that the role profile is for information purposes only - whilst all elements are relevant to the role, they may not all be assessed during the recruitment process. This job advert will detail exactly what will be assessed during the recruitment process.

Person specification

To be successful in this role you will need to have the following experience:

• Experience of providing support or advice to senior level management.
• Experience of working to tight deadlines with competing priorities, under pressure
• Experience of confidently making timely and accurate decisions

Additional Information

Working hours, office attendance and travel requirements

Full time roles consist of 37 hours per week.

Whilst we welcome applications from those looking to work with us on a part time basis, there is a business requirement for the successful candidate to be able to work at least 30 hours per week.

Occasional travel to other offices will be required, which may involve overnight stays.

If you have a question about hybrid working, part time/job share hours, flexible working, travelling for work, or require a reasonable adjustment, please contact the Vacancy Holder during the recruitment process to avoid possible disappointment later in the process should your working arrangements not be compatible with the requirements of the role (see below for contact details).

Visa Sponsorship

DfT does not offer Visa Sponsorship for this role

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Working Together
• Making Effective Decisions
• Communicating and Influencing
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Delivering at Pace

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £35,663, Department for Transport contributes £10,331 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

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