Head of Advice Sustainability & Practice (Secondment opportunity)

Location: Blended between office and home (England and Wales). Time in office negotiable.

As the Head of Advice Sustainability and Practice, you’ll be at the forefront of shaping sustainable and innovative advice products, practices and relationships to ensure the future of the Citizens Advice service. With a persistent focus on the continuous development of our advice offer, this pivotal role holds responsibility for a broad and strategically significant portfolio encompassing:

• Strategic development of impactful, sustainable advice, including learning products and advisor resources for our diverse network of close to 20,000 colleagues and volunteers.
• Leading the development of impactful relationships across the sector, role modelling collaboration and co-design to explore new and innovative ways of meeting need through partnerships and other initiatives.
• Driving the identification and implementation of cutting-edge client and member facing service innovations, harnessing technology and exploring opportunities to commercialise our offer.
• Developing robust, ethical and inclusive frameworks for the delivery of advice products, innovations, workforce planning and demand management.

All of these will require close collaboration across our Citizens Advice system, both the national organisation and our members and the wider advice sector. Key partners will be the wider Client and Member Services directorate, Strategy and Income colleagues, funders, advice sector partners and local leaders.

You will be a strategic thinker, adept at connecting the evolving needs of our clients and members with the practicalities of advice delivery. This role demands the ability to see the bigger picture and to translate strategic vision into deliverable advice products, practices and relationships that enhance and sustain our services, strengthen our impact and ensure our advice is fit for the future. You will be instrumental in challenging the status quo, fostering a culture of experimentation across the service and advice sector more broadly, whilst ensuring we centre the needs of clients in all our thinking.

Reporting to the Director of Advice within our newly formed Client and Member Services Directorate, you’ll play a pivotal part working with like-minded leaders to change how we deliver sustainable advice to millions of clients and support thousands of incredible advisors for many years to come.

Please provide details in your cover letter to evidence the following essential criteria:

• Strategic Thinking and Vision: Proven ability to think strategically, identify future trends, and translate a broad understanding of advice delivery within a federated (or similarly complex) environment into innovative strategy, development plans and initiatives.
• Service Development, Innovation and Implementation: Significant experience in leading and delivering service development projects, including the design, implementation, and evaluation of new service models and innovative solutions, leading and managing change and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
• Operational Management and Service Delivery: Deep subject matter expertise in relevant advice areas (e.g., social welfare, consumer, housing, benefits, debt). Proven experience in leading and managing advice functions to provide legal advice within a complex organisation often at pace and across multiple products, with a track record of achieving strategic goals and operational excellence.
• Stakeholder Management, Collaboration and Influence: Demonstrable experience of building and maintaining effective collaborative relationships with a diverse range of internal and external stakeholders, including senior leaders, operational teams, external partners and regulatory bodies, with an ability to influence and negotiate.

Citizens Advice offers confidential advice online, over the phone, and in person, for free. Through our national network of charities, we give people the knowledge and the confidence they need to find their way forward whoever they are, and whatever their problem. Do you want to work for an organisation that makes a difference, every single day, to people from all walks of life? The people that turn to Citizens Advice need help overcoming an obstacle in their lives from debt to evictions to trouble at work and you can be key to them getting the support they need in the quickest, easiest, and most effective way.

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) is of strategic importance within the organisation and recognised as integral to all we do as a service. Central to pursuing our EDI mission is building diverse and inclusive teams in which everyone has a sense of belonging. We believe inclusion is a social justice issue - a principle that underpins our all EDI work. To that end, we particularly welcome applications from people we would like to see better represented in our organisation and sector - people of colour, LGBTQ+ people and disabled people.

We follow the social model of disability. We will offer an interview to disabled candidates who indicate they wish their application to be considered under our Disability Confident Interview Commitment where they meet our selection criteria in their application. Some of our roles attract a high volume of applications and in some circumstances where it is not practicable or appropriate, we may limit the number of interviews offered to disabled and non-disabled candidates. We will provide reasonable adjustments as needed.

We’re a flexible employer, so this role may suit anyone who’d prefer a flexible arrangement to help their work/life balance, many of our colleagues spend most of their time working remotely. Whilst we prefer a blended approach between a local office, if one is near you, and home we’re open to being flexible on location, occasionally a role may require you to be based in a certain location if that’s the case it will be detailed in the advert or job description. This can be discussed in more detail during your interview.

The National Citizens Advice operates from offices in England and Wales, with 4 regional offices based in Cardiff, London, Birmingham and Leeds, therefore all successful applicants must be based within England or Wales. Please be aware that Citizens Advice is not a sponsoring organisation. Therefore the successful applicant must already possess the right to work in the UK or be able to secure the right to work in the UK independently.

We have been awarded the top charity in Third sector's employer index, where it's recognised that Citizens Advice is an organization that not only prioritises the people we serve but also values the wellbeing of its employees.

This role may be considered for an inward secondment from a local Citizens Advice organisation, if the successful applicant meets the eligibility requirements for a secondment. Citizens Advice seeks to redeploy internal staff who are at risk or under notice of redundancy and will prioritise them in the recruitment process where necessary. If you have been confirmed as at risk or under notice of redundancy please ensure you indicate this in the at-risk box in your application.

Please note, in the event of a high number of applications, we reserve the right to close the application early. This vacancy closes at 23.59 on the closing date.