Home Office seeks tech and data leaders as transformation programme rolls on

Department has brought in £300k headhunters to support recruitment

Credit: Steve Cadman/CC BY-SA 2.0

The Home Office is pressing ahead with a hiring drive to support a transformation programme, with 10 roles up for grabs, including key technology and data leadership positions.

The department has called in headhunters to help fill six director-level posts over the coming months. 

It signed a contract worth up to £300,000 in June commissioning the Green Park consultancy to recruit directors of borders, visitors and international migration; migration and borders system and strategy; enforcement, compliance and crime; intelligence; passports and the general register office; and Home Office science and technology delivery and strategy.

The roles are all being filled under the new structures being put in place under the One Home Office transformation programme, which began in April. The programme’s goals include establishing “clearer roles and responsibilities for all teams” and creating “more integrated teams”, the department’s permanent secretary, Matthew Rycroft said that month.

The science and technology job is already being advertised through the civil service jobs website. It comes with a salary of up to £115,000 and involves leading a team of up to 130 people across London, Croydon, the West Midlands and other Home Office sites.


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The successful applicant will be responsible for delivering a £30m science and tech programme, who includes work undertaken by other organisations including the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory.

They will work with industry and academia to build upon and exploit science and technology opportunities for the department, prioritising resources, as well as being responsible for operational functions including the National DNA Database and the licensing and Inspection of animal scientific procedures.

The role is complementary to the science and technology portfolio for the directorate-general for homeland security – one of three vertical “missions” the Home Office is putting in place as part of its transformation programme. The other two directorates general will oversee public safety, and migration and borders.

There will also be five directors general overseeing what Rycroft called horizontal “capabilities”. A job ad for a new Border Force and immigration enforcement DG went live last month.

The remaining director jobs will be advertised in the coming months.

‘Exceptional leader’ sought for data portfolio
Alongside the six roles being hired through Green Park, the Home Office is advertising for a director for its National Law Enforcement Data Portfolio.

The NLEDP is one of a number of large-scale transformation programmes that make up the department’s Police and Public Protection Technology directorate, which designs, builds and deploys national law enforcement systems.

“As we continue to enhance the quality of our services, we are now looking to appoint an exceptional leader into a newly created role to establish and run the National Law Enforcement Data Portfolio,” the advert says.

The job, which pays up to £130,000, will have overall accountability for the successful delivery of NLEDP, building capacity, capability for the organisation, which will be staffed by 400 full-time equivalent civil servants, private-sector contractors and contingent workers.

The candidate will also define and implement the portfolio’s commercial strategy.

The government commercial function is meanwhile hiring for three deputy director-level posts based in the Home Office. It is seeking two commercial specialists to focus on digital, data and technology, and one to work on public safety.

The new roles support the Home Office’s transformation programme, which provides an “opportunity to change our ways of working”, according to the job adverts.

The deputy director jobs, which each come with a salary of between £91,800 and £131,300, entail leading the Home Office’s commercial team and stakeholders through a “significant step-change in the way we deliver a commercial service”, the job ads say.

“You will lead a significant portfolio of commercial spend, leading business and category strategies, and delivering excellent commercial outcomes for the Home Office key priorities.”

The new hires will be among the most senior members of the government commercial function and will play a role in the government’s commercial reform programme, as well as the Home Office transformation

 

Sam Trendall

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