Job Description

Details

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Reference number

417513

Salary

59,946
A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
GBP

Job grade

Grade 7

Contract type

Permanent

Business area

(Group: Buildings and Resilience) [Directorate: Grenfell Site and Memorial, Building Safety Fund]

Type of role

Policy

Working pattern

Flexible working, Full-time, Job share

Number of jobs available

1

Contents

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Location About the job Benefits Things you need to know Apply and further information

Location

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London

About the job

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Job summary

Are you a thoughtful communicator who can balance empathy with confidence to build trust and clarity in every interaction?


Do you excel at staying organised and focused, even when priorities shift--proactively planning your work while confidently managing competing demands?


If so, we have an opportunity for a Head of Strategic Communications lead to join our team at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and we'd love to hear from you!


We are seeking an experienced communications professional to lead strategic communications for the Grenfell Site Programme as we work towards a community-led memorial at the Grenfell Tower site. The Grenfell Site Programme has been established to fulfil the Government commitment that the bereaved, survivors and community will lead the decision-making process regarding the long-term future of the site. Community-facing communications relating to the deconstruction of the tower and the future memorial to be established at the site must be strategic and considered, audience-focussed, and sensitive to the wider context and history of the site. About the role: You'll develop and deliver strategic communications across the programme, supporting the Government commitment that bereaved families, survivors and the community lead decision-making on the site's future. You'll be based in the Grenfell team with strong links to MHCLG's central communications team.


We particularly welcome candidates from an ethnic minority background and other underrepresented groups to apply, as we work to continually improve our ability to represent places and communities we support through our work. We are looking to develop the diversity of our team, drawing from a range of cultural backgrounds, to support engagement with a diverse community in west London.


Regular, weekly attendance is required in the London Office.

Job description

Key Responsibilities:

Provide strategic planning and visible leadership for communications and engagement. Build effective relationships with programme leadership and technical experts. Support community engagement officials in their local work Project management. Coordinate daily workstream activities for communications, capturing interdependencies and deconflicting community-facing communication from other Grenfell communication. Monitor progress, mitigating risks and responding to communications issues should they arise Content development. Manage production of communications materials across multiple channels. Oversee high-quality content for newsletters, social media and online platforms. Contract-manage external agencies as needed Stakeholder engagement. Establish communication channels beyond programme boundaries. Manage stakeholder relations and coordinate with other communications teams. Lead strategic planning for engagement events. Work collaboratively across Grenfell Recovery programme workstreams, as well as with the central communications team at MHCLG.

Person specification

Essential Skills and Experience

Proven track record in strategic communication, media relations or campaigns. Experience delivering multi-channel communications - experience in community recovery, trauma and/or direct community communication is a significant plus. Ability to translate complex insights and a broad spectrum of audience needs into clear strategies, timing and products. Excellent organisational and influencing skills, as well as the ability to provide confident communications advice at a senior level.

Desirable criteria


Previous experience of working in a high profile, sensitive environment, with significant media scrutiny.

Behaviours

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


Communicating and Influencing Seeing the Big Picture Leadership Delivering at Pace

Benefits

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Alongside your salary of 59,946, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government contributes 17,366 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.Learning and development tailored to your role. An environment with flexible working options. A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity. A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%.

Things you need to know

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Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles , and will assess your Behaviours and Strengths.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

CV Declaration

As part of our pre-employment checking process, we will be using your CV to confirm your job history. Please note that by providing us with your CV you are consenting to us using the information enclosed as part of the checking process. Unless stated otherwise in the advert, your CV will not form part of the assessment but will be used for information purposes and only shared with the panel at interview stage.


Our application system is designed to remove as much bias as possible from the recruitment system - this means that a hiring manager does not know your name, your details, see your whole application in one go (or have your CV at review stage unless stated otherwise).


Your answers are randomised and chunked up. This means that each assessor views sets of responses to each question rather than seeing a candidate's full application. The science behind this is that recruitment can be subject to ordering and fatigue effects and we want to reducethis as much aspossible.


Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that each of your answers would be viewed by different assessors.


When writing your application, remember:

the assessor won't be reading your answers sequentially do not assume that the same assessors will have read all of your answers if talking about something in your first answer, make sure that you write the second answer as if you had not written the first (and so on!)

We do not consider direct CV applications to our Recruitment mailbox - you must apply for this role via the application link on Civil Service Jobs

At sift, we will be assessing:

Behaviour 1:

Communicating and Influencing

(Lead Behaviour)

Behaviour 2:

Seeing the Big Picture
There is a 250 word limit per question.


In the event that we receive a large number of applications, we may conduct an initial sift using the lead behaviour listed in the advert. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift or progressed straight to assessment/interview.

The interview will be of a blended nature consisting of the following Success Profiles:

Behaviours:

Seeing the Big Picture, Communicating and Influencing, Leadership, Delivering at Pace

Strengths:

The strength-based questions will require natural responses from the candidates.

In the full campaign we will test the below Success Profiles:

Behaviours

Strengths

Grade 7 salary

The salary for this role is

59,946 (London) or 54,531 (National).

For existing civil servants, the usual policy on level transfer and promotion will apply and is non-negotiable. If you apply for a role that requires a transfer of location, for example if you are transferring from London to a National location, your salary will be adjusted in accordance with our policy on transfer between HQ pay ranges.

Please note that the average employer pension contribution is based upon the National minimum salary for this role. Should your agreed starting salary for this role be different, the average employer pension contribution will be calculated accordingly. If you are a Secondee, this will not apply as you will remain on your home organisation's terms and conditions.

Benefits

Transfers across the Civil Service on or after 4 October 2018:

Any move to MHCLG from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk


For further information about the benefits available to MHCLG employees, please see the attached Candidate Pack.

Location

London


There may be opportunities for candidates to work flexibly depending on the business needs. This will be discussed with the vacancy manager on a case-by-case basis if you are successful for the role.

Sift and Interview Dates

Sifting is envisaged to take place W/C 25th August 2025 with interview dates to be confirmed. All interviews are currently being held remotely via videocall.

Reserve List

In the event that we identify more appointable candidates than we currently have posts available, we will hold applicant details in a reserve list for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. This may include roles at a lower grade. Candidates placed on a reserve list will be informed of this. Those candidates who do not wish to remain on the reserve list should contact recruitment@communities.gov.uk to be removed from the reserve list.


Please note that near miss offers may be made at the lower grade to candidates who do not meet the grade criteria for this campaign.

Security Clearance Requirements

CTC Clearance (Counter Terrorism Check)

All MHCLG colleagues must meet the Baseline Personnel Security Standard. This is a series of basic security checks to confirm identity and employment history. In addition to the BPSS, successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check and the process can take up to 8 weeks to complete. CTC security checks requires you to have been resident in the UK for the past 3 years. Please refer to the MHCLG Notes on Security Clearance section of our Candidate Pack for further information on Counter Terrorism Clearance (CTC).


Candidates should also note that with effect from 1st August 2018 the department will also check all applicants who are successful at interview, against the Internal Fraud Database (IFD) held by the Cabinet Office. In accordance with the Civil Service Internal Fraud Policy, any applicant who is included on the IFD will be refused employment by MHCLG. Please see the Candidate Pack for further information on the Internal Fraud Database.

Candidate Pack Information

Please see attached Candidate pack for further information. The candidate pack contains information about the CS Commissioners appeals and complaints procedure.

Before starting your application it's very important to make sure that you are eligible to apply and meet the Civil Service nationality requirements. All candidates are expected to read the information provided in the MHCLG candidate pack regarding nationality requirements and rules

Internal Fraud Database

The Internal Fraud function of the Fraud, Error, Debt and Grants Function at the Cabinet Office processes details of civil servants who have been dismissed for committing internal fraud, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned. The Cabinet Office receives the details from participating government organisations of civil servants who have been dismissed, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned, for internal fraud. In instances such as this, civil servants are then banned for 5 years from further employment in the civil service. The Cabinet Office then processes this data and discloses a limited dataset back to MHCLG as a participating government organisations. MHCLG then carry out the pre employment checks so as to detect instances where known fraudsters are attempting to reapply for roles in the civil service. In this way, the policy is ensured and the repetition of internal fraud is prevented.


For more information please see: Internal Fraud Register.




Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check .



See our vetting charter .
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:


UK nationals nationals of the Republic of Ireland nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020 Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
Further information on nationality requirements

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.



We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles .
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy .

Apply and further information

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This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans initiative.
Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

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Job contact :

Name : Rabina Nawaz Email : rabina.nawaz@communities.gov.uk
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Recruitment team

* Email : recruitment@communities.gov.uk