Child Maintenance Service: Employer Payments Team - Work Group Leader

at  Department for Work and Pensions

JOB SUMMARY

Family separation is never easy. The Child Maintenance Service helps parents, who are unable to make a private financial agreement in support of their child(ren)’s living costs, ensure and at times enforce, the legal responsibility to provide financial support. Our mission is to ‘get money to children’ because it makes a real difference to children’s lives. Child Maintenance Service is not only undergoing a significant period of change as we drive forward our transformation agenda, but in tandem, we continue to deliver a politically significant and fundamentally crucial service to millions of separated families around the country who depend upon the work we do. Our story over the last two years is one of impressive progress and improvement. Despite the progress we’ve made, we are unashamedly ambitious about what more we can achieve and the difference we can make for the families who need us. Child Maintenance Service is an amazing place to work. Walk into any one of our service centres and you will be overwhelmed by the passion and commitment that our people have for supporting our customers.

JOB DESCRIPTION

CMS has an exciting opportunity at the Higher Executive Officer (HEO) grade in our Arrears Employer Payment Team. We are looking for a candidate to fill this key role who has a passion for leading and delivering excellent customer service, who is flexible and versatile, able to make sound decisions, and drive and implement change in a high profile often high-pressured environment.
You will be an inspirational and resourceful leader, able to drive people engagement across your teams, setting high standards for people leadership throughout the business, and personally exemplifying “one customer, one business” behaviours. Leading / managing a team you will be accountable for managing workloads, effectively managing resources, and prioritising and addressing any risks to ensure performance targets and customer objectives are met. As a people manager you will support wellbeing across the teams, manage attendance and conduct regular Coaching reviews confidently addressing risks to performance.
You will be an excellent communicator with the ability to influence and motivate people at all levels, supporting colleagues by communicating corporate changes and the long-term organisational vision with clarity and purpose.
You will have the ability to understand and lead change, creating and role modelling a ‘continuous improvement’ culture that promotes and supports innovation and delivers improvements to performance and customer service / experience and provide feedback to support continual improvement.

ESSENTIAL CRITERIA

This is what you will be assessed against, and should align your personal statement to. Your evidence will be assessed against the following essential criteria. You must ensure you provide specific examples to demonstrate these criteria in your personal statement. Candidates will be able to demonstrate the following:

• Strong leadership and coaching skills. Lead by example and provide inspiration, direction and support to colleagues by communicating corporate changes with clarity and purpose (Lead Criteria).
• Ability to drive through change using continuous improvement methodology.
• Excellent people engagement skills and a focus on building collaborative working relationships with colleagues, and both internal and external stakeholders.
• Ability to positively inspire, encourage and influence others to obtain buy-in from colleagues, actively seeking and listening to feedback by encouraging discussion and ideas in support of the long term organisational vision, and acting on feedback.
• Ability to work flexibly to meet changing priorities, managing a diverse workload, and optimising resources to meet current and future customer expectations.
• Ability to critically analyse products and processes including MI, to identify areas for action, resolving issues and making suggestions for improvement.
• Confident decision maker, taking a leading role in proactively managing agreed team performance, effectively managing resources, demonstrating a firm and fair approach to line management responsibilities in accordance with policy and procedures.

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) (opens in a new window)
• 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 (opens in a new window)

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

CMS Employer Payment Team is a fundamental stage in the Payment Compliance process. This is a fast paced and challenging environment.
Successful applicants will have line management responsibility for up to 5 EO led teams of Employer Account Managers.
Key tasks will include:
The delivery of our people agenda which is balanced alongside strong performance management and our responsibilities regarding governance, risk, security and health and safety management requirements.
Regular contact with colleagues, partners and stakeholders to drive positive outcomes and influence change supporting Deduction from Earning Order (DEO) compliance. This responsibility extends to regular engagement with Employers and external partners, building relationships with DWP Digital, Child Maintenance stakeholders, HMRC forums and colleagues from across the wider Civil Service.
Leading the transformation of the Employer Payment team including channel optimisation and service modernisation. A key stakeholder in identifying and delivering change opportunities and leading the change agenda through continuous improvement activities.