JOB SUMMARY

The Government People Group exists to work with departments, professions, and functions to build a modern, effective Civil Service.
We support the government workforce with the right skills and capability. We are working with leaders to get the right people in the right jobs, with the right skills and continuous learning to excel in their roles.
We provide leadership, and in turn, create leaders with exceptional line management capability across departments, influencing partners in the wider public sector and beyond. This involves getting our retention and reward strategy right, to nurture specific skills, and create pride and resilience in our workforce.
Our role is also to provide system leadership across central government in pulling together back office services. Collectively, we help support the Cabinet Office’s priority to drive efficiencies, and reforms that will make government work better, to ultimately provide a better service to the public.
Within the GPG, Government Skills was set up in 2020 to drive up capability across Government in an evidence-based and impact-led way. Government Skills ensures all civil servants, from entry to most senior leadership, have the core and specialist knowledge, skills and networks they need to deliver great public services and address complex systemic challenges, now and in the future. This work is central to the Public Sector Reform and Efficiency policy area, and supports Mission Delivery by ensuring the workforce has the capability and learning culture to deliver against the Government’s missions.
The Evidence and Impact team within Government Skills is responsible for ensuring that hundreds of millions of pounds of annual spend on developing the skills, knowledge and relationships of the Government workforce is evidence-based and impact-led. We use a combination of analytical methods covering monitoring/data analytics, social research, evaluation, statistics, behavioural and user research, and economic analysis to provide robust, purposeful insights to inform business decisions.
Our evidence supports the creation of effective policy and strategy on the future skills needs of the government and wider public sector workforce, and supports effective design, commissioning and delivery of the interventions required to achieve this. The team has a reputation as a centre of expertise supporting the whole of government on these issues, and is expanding as part of plans for the next spending review period 2025-26.
You can find more information about Government Skills on our GOV.UK page:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-skills-and-curriculum-unit including about our team: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/evidence-based-learning-and-development and our current Evaluation Strategy:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-campus-evaluation-
strategy.

JOB DESCRIPTION

As Senior Statistical Officer you will lead statistical analysis for Government Skills to understand the relationship between workforce skills, capability-building investments and critical outcomes including Civil Service and people performance, and mission delivery across government and the wider public sector. Due to the implementation of Mission Delivery, and the current Spending Review, this is an exciting time to ensure that Government Skills is informed by a strong foundation of evidence and evaluation. You will play a pivotal role in supporting the development and implementation of a comprehensive data strategy for Government Skills. This involves establishing a forward-looking model for data, analytics, and data products. Key responsibilities include developing data sharing agreements with Government Departments and facilitating the integration and linkage of complex data sets to allow you and others to conduct effective analysis and statistically robust research/evaluation. Additionally, will be instrumental in embedding best practices for data quality and management across the directorate as we shape and refine our data strategy on sound statistical
principles.
There are a wide range of analytical projects you may become involved with, being responsive to the priorities of the directorate and our wider stakeholders. This is likely to include supporting impact and economic evaluations; producing modelling to support the appraisal of different options for future operating models for delivering a skilled Civil Service workforce, and ensuring the analytical capability of several significant projects including a Government Major Project.
You will work closely with the senior leadership team within Evidence and Impact and will contribute to the development, maturity and positive culture of the E&I team and the wider Government Skills Directorate.

QUALIFICATIONS AND MEMBERSHIPS:

Candidates should be eligible to be badged into the Government Statistical Service (GSS) at SEO level, or be already be badged in the GSS at this level. If not already badged, your eligibility to join the GSS at SEO level will be assessed during the selection process. Information about the GSS and the eligibility criteria can be found on the Analysis Function website

You should have one of the following:

• A first or second class honours degree or equivalent in a subject containing formal statistical training (e.g. Statistics, Mathematics, Economics, Sciences, Business Studies, Psychology, Geography, Data Science or similar; or
• A higher degree, e.g. an MSc or PhD, in a subject containing formal statistical training (e.g. Statistics, Mathematics, Economics, Sciences, Business Studies, Data Science, Psychology, Geography or similar).
• Have worked in a statistical or data science field and are able to demonstrate Continuous Professional Development (via a logbook) in applying statistics or data science at the same level as a foundation degree or Higher National Diploma (level five), which demonstrates the expected skills as outlined in the GSG Competency framework.
• Have achieved a level 4 apprenticeship including experience in a statistical/data analysis field in government and are able to demonstrate continuous professional development in statistics/data analysis (via a CPD log book signed off by a manager or mentor who are members of the statistical profession).

QUALIFICATIONS

Badged member of the GSS or GORS.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Acquiring data and understanding customer needs
• Data Analysis
• Presenting and Disseminating Data Effectively

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

RESPONSIBILITIES WILL INCLUDE:

• Support the development and implementation of a directorate-wide data strategy, taking lead responsibility for agreed areas of the strategy.
• Lead on statistical analysis across the directorate, supporting an evidence-based, impact-led approach to developing the capability of the government and public sector workforce, across the full policy/delivery cycle from identification of the problem/opportunity, through to understanding and influencing implementation, through to formative and summative evaluation of impact, quality and economic value.
• Support on the transition to a new model of data collection, analysis, reporting, insight, research and evaluation as part of a Government Major Project.
• Design and manage analytical projects across the full analytical cycle from inception, to design, implementation, reporting and impact, including managing internal and external commissioning where needed, and being day-to-day contact as required.
• Support the teams in meeting stakeholders’ data and analysis needs, using and developing your own knowledge and drawing on appropriate external resources and expertise.
• Ensure that all statistical analysis is high quality, ethical and aligned with relevant frameworks, including the Government Campus Evaluation Strategy and other relevant guidance, including the Magenta Book, the Aqua Book and the Code of Practice for Statistics.
• Promote innovation in statistical methods through applying your existing knowledge and skills, and proactively upskilling yourself, for example, on ethical and robust use of AI within statistical analysis.
• Alongside the Evidence and Impact Team leads, work closely with internal stakeholders to identify, prioritise and thematically connect longer term and immediate data and analysis needs (including understanding data customers’ needs across the civil service).
• Contributing to the effective development of the Evidence and Impact Team by leading on at least one cross-cutting work area, for example, building capacity in statistical analysis across the team.