Policy Adviser - Higher Executive Officer in Durham

Salary: National: £34,820 - £40,000. If the successful candidate is a current Civil Servant joining on level transfer, HM Treasury will honour their current substantive salary if higher.

Contract Type: Permanent

Working Pattern: This post is available on a full time, part time or job share basis, and flexible working hours can be accommodated.

Location: Darlington (Feethams House) only

Do you want to work in a fast-paced environment where you will be responsible for ensuring the smooth running of Budget and Statements across the department? If so, then this could be the role for you! You do not need any specific qualifications or experience to take on this role, just evidence of the right behaviours, values and motivation to succeed.

About the Team

The Budget and Finance Bill Team are a fun and supportive team which sits at the centre of the Treasury and is responsible for delivering the department’s policy objectives through Budgets and Statements. The team works with privates offices, special advisers, policy teams, HMRC, comms specialists and more to bring together a coherent package of tax, welfare and spending policy announcements and present these to the outside world in the most effective way. The team operates in a dynamic and fast paced environment, especially in the run up to fiscal events, and has visibility of policy development happening across the whole department. You will regularly be exposed to and working on issues prone to hit the newspaper headlines, which makes our work relatable and interesting. In the period between fiscal events, the post supports cross-cutting departmental policy priorities using similar skillset, most recently leading on the delivery of the Chancellor’s second Mais lecture and co-ordinating the Treasury’s response to the Iran conflict. The team works flexibly to provide variety and support people’s personal development goals. We give team members lots of support and on the job training to help you develop the knowledge and skills you need to do well. Diversity is very important to us, as is team wellbeing, and we have experience with and support flexible working arrangements.

The role is in the Policy and Presentation branch of the team, which is responsible for the overall coordination, delivery and presentation of Budgets and Statements, including owning the overarching project plan, coordinating policy development and Ministerial decision making, and leading on key presentational product and processes such as the main budget document, supplementary documents and a comprehensive briefing pack.

The key responsibilities of the post-holder will be:

• You will be responsible for ensuring the smooth running of Budget and Statements across the department, delivering a high quality of service, identifying and mitigating risks, and driving delivery.
• Creating and managing a project plan for delivering Budgets and Statements, covering the full range of milestones and processes relevant to fiscal event delivery including Ministerial meetings and movements, policy development, presentational products, and legislation.
• Coordinating the development, clearance and publication of Budget documents, including Charts and Tables included in the main budget document (the publication setting out all policies being announced), and supplementary documents published alongside the main document on budget day (which can number anywhere between 30 and 90).
• Leading on core elements of fiscal event delivery, including organising kick off and post event townhalls for the department, providing secretariat for the weekly budget directors meetings in the run up to fiscal events and coordinating weekly comms emails from the budget team to the department.
• Building and maintaining strong relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders to ensure essential budget services are delivered and there is timely and high-quality input into budget processes run by the branch; including private offices, policy leads, HMRC, internal comms, the internal reprographics service, the external printing supplier (who typeset and print the main budget document), and HMT facilities, security and caterers.
• Designing and implementing a cross-departmental lessons learned process to collect, review and act on feedback from the department across all budget processes run by the team. This will include facilitating discussions within the team and with key stakeholders to reflect on processes and team ways of working, designing actions to address these, and driving implementation.
• Account management of an allocated policy workstream (such as all measures in a budget relating to public services, or welfare and labour markets), including tracking policy development and ensuring timely input into budget products and processes.

About You

We want you to have the ability to plan, prioritise and deliver on a broad portfolio of work at pace and to a high quality, in an often busy and uncertain working environment. We would also like you to have the ability to build and maintain relationships with a wide network of stakeholders and collaborate to deliver results. As well as being able to identify and implement improvements to processes and/or ways of working and support people to manage change.

Some of the Benefits our people love!

• 25 days annual leave (rising to 30 after 5 years), plus 8 public holidays and the King’s birthday (unless you have a legacy arrangement as an existing Civil Servant).
• Additionally, we operate flexitime systems, allowing employees to take up to an additional 2 days off each month.
• Flexible working patterns (part-time, job-share, condensed hours).
• Generous parental and adoption leave packages.
• Access to a generous Defined Benefit pension scheme with employer contributions of 28%.
• Access to a cycle-to-work salary sacrifice scheme and season ticket advances.
• A range of active staff networks, based around interests (e.g. analysts, music society, sports and social club) and diversity.

For more information about the role and how to apply, please follow the apply link.