26.128 - Associate Director - Risk, Assurance and Resilience

Disclosure & Barring Service

Remote

Expires: Expiring in 4 days

Finance

Flexible

£74,061 - £79,037 per year

Job summary

The Associate Director for Risk, Assurance & Resilience provides strategic leadership for the organisation's enterprise risk management, assurance, business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) posture as well as the Government Functional Standards and Government Internal Audit Agency programme.

The postholder is responsible for developing and maintaining an integrated framework that enables the Board, Executive Team and Accounting Officer to understand, manage and mitigate risks affecting the achievement of organisational objectives. The role ensures that assurance activities are aligned, proportionate and effective, supporting informed decision-making and continuous improvement across DBS.

As the organisational lead for corporate risk and assurance, the postholder will influence at Board level, build organisational capability, drive a strong risk culture and ensure compliance with government functional standards, the Orange Book principles and wider governance requirements.

The postholder will also lead DBS’ BCDR strategy, ensuring alignment with resilience standards and security requirements.

Job description

Key Responsibilities:

Ensuring clear policies, procedures and framework are available and develop new ideas and best practise to drive continuous improvement within your portfolio.
Leading on the development, implementation and regular review of risk management and assurance frameworks and the development of relevant improvement plans which drive improvements in risk maturity.
Promoting a joined-up approach with strategy and policy development, planning, change delivery, performance, portfolio risk team and other relevant functions.
Ownership of the Risk Management system and risk reporting, which provides strong insight to drive strategic decisions and discussions.
Providing expert advice, framework and support to Executive teams and business groups on all aspects of risk management and BCDR, providing assurance on evolving risk areas such as cyber and AI.
Ownership of the Counter fraud and Internal Audit Government Functional Standard as well as leadership of the wider consolidation and governance of all other Government Functional standards across the organisation.
Working closely with performance management colleagues, compliance functions, auditors, inspectors, regulators and other relevant teams to build a coordinated picture of opportunities, risks and issues.
Delivering a positive impact on improving risk management, delivery of plans, value for money, securing good external relationships and enhancing organisational capability.
Developing communication and upskilling tools to train staff in the risk management and business continuity frameworks.
Building positive relationships with key stakeholders, including the wider civil service community, to ensure the local approach reflects wider best practise.
Support the Executive Director of Finance and Commercial or equivalent post holder in advising the board when it is setting the overall risk appetite, strategy and architecture of the risk management framework.
Persuading and influencing senior leaders about the importance of good risk management, building positive risk management relationships with key stakeholders, including the wider government community to ensure the department's approach reflects wider best practise.
Lead DBS’ Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery response, including taking on the role of DBS Incident Manager for major incidents.
Own and maintain the organisation wide Business Continuity Management Framework, ensuring business impact analyses (BIA’s), continuity plans and recovery strategies remain current.
Ensure critical services, systems, data and suppliers have tested recovery plans.
Provide assurance to executives and sponsors on organisational resilience and recovery activities.
Conduct scenario testing, simulation exercises and lessons-learned reviews, ensuring recovery plans are validated and improved following exercises and incidents.
Undertake corporate duties as a senior leader within DBS, including deputising for the Executive Director of Finance and Commercial and/or representing the function, including at Executive Team and Board Committees, and in meetings with external stakeholders. This includes membership of the organisation’s Executive groups and potentially fulfilling the role of Chair or Vice Chair for one of those groups.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

Adaptable, maintaining effectiveness when experiencing major changes in tasks and operating environment, adjusting effectively to work within new structures, processes, requirements, or cultures.
Constructively challenge and motivate teams and senior leaders to support improved outcomes within the department.
Lead and inspire the risk management and BCDR team, ensuring it is equipped with the right skills and experience to deliver objectives and act as a centre of excellence for DBS.
Think strategically and demonstrate a clear and compelling vision for the organisation that will develop join- up and promote efficiency and motivate and enthuse others.
Work independently and flexibly with a focus on delivering outcomes in line with the Executive Directors vision
Exercising sound judgement and adopting an optimistic and pragmatic approach to solving problems.
Build stakeholder relationships at the most senior levels based on trust and respect, exercising discretion when exposed to sensitive information.
Drive continuous improvement in the organisation through developing stakeholders and own team, delivering a strong risk culture, risk maturity and improved outcomes.
Passion for developing the risk management and BCDR profession and the people in your team and ability to provide professional leadership across government.
Work with the business to determine plans and ensure that appropriate corporate policies, controls and assurance are in place.
Work seamlessly across boundaries, collaborating with and drawing on resources from across department and government.
Significant senior leadership experience in enterprise risk management, assurance, and resilience.
Experience of advising Boards, Audit and Risk Committees and Executive Teams.
Experience of leading organisational assurance frameworks.
Experience of managing strategic and operational risks within a complex organisation.
Experience of leading organisational change and influencing senior stakeholders.
Experience of GIAA audit programmes
Understanding of the Orange Book
Understanding of Government Functional Standards

Desirable Criteria:

Experience of operating in a regulatory agency or non-departmental public body (NDPB)
Achieved or working towards: CBCI/ MBCI (Certificate/Member of the Business Continuity Institute)

Qualifications

The successful candidate must have achieved or is working towards IRM Certificate/ Diploma in Enterprise Risk Management (or equivalent)

Behaviours

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

Communicating and Influencing
Changing and Improving
Leadership
Developing Self and Others
Managing a Quality Service
Delivering at Pace

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £74,061, Disclosure & Barring Service contributes £21,455 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

The DBS offers a number of excellent benefits for its employees. These can include:

Generous annual leave entitlement
Excellent maternity, paternity and adoption schemes (after a qualifying period)
Commitment to the health and wellbeing of our employees
Employee Assistance Programme
Flexible working opportunities
Eyecare voucher scheme
Occupational Health Service including referrals for counselling and physiotherapy
24/7 Counselling and Wellbeing Service
A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

The DBS vision and purpose is to make people safer by being a visible, trusted and influential organisation, providing an outstanding quality of service to all our customers and partners, where our people understand the important safeguarding contributions they make and feel proud to work here. To do this, the DBS is committed to being an employer that is able to attract, develop, retain and engage diverse talent that is representative of the communities we serve, and to be an organisation providing outstanding service to all our existing and new customers, who are diverse and have a range of different needs. We want all our staff to be able to bring their ‘whole self’ to work.

Things you need to know

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 (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

To apply for this role, please provide a CV along with a Personal Statement of no more than 1000 words outlining how your skills, experience and qualifications meet the requirements of the role, including all essential and desirable criteria.

Please be advised that the CV is for information purposes only and will not be scored.

Candidates successful at the sift stage will be invited to attend an interview which will include a presentation and will assess the following behaviours:

Communicating and Influencing
Changing & Improving
Leadership
Developing Self & Others
Managing a Quality Service
Delivering at Pace

Further details on the presentation topic and the assessed behaviour will be provided to shortlisted candidates invited to interview.

Interviews will be held virtually via MS Teams.

The following timetable outlines indicative dates. Please note, these dates may be subject to change without prior notice.

Advert closing date: Monday 14th September at 10am.

The initial candidate sift is due to take place week commencing 14th September 2026.

Interviews are due to take place week commencing 28th September 2026.

Whilst we will endeavour to provide some flexibility with regards to dates wherever possible, it is unlikely that we will be able to offer an alternative date once an appointment has been scheduled.

Security

**SC clearance level is a requirement for this role.**

You must meet the security requirements before you can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check.

For meaningful checks to be carried out, you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. Whilst a lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance, the expectation of UK residency for SC clearance is 5 years continuous presence in the UK. Failure to meet the residency requirements needed for the role may result in the withdrawal of provisional jobs offers.

See our vetting charter.

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) criminal record check.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) (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)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) 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 (opens in a new window).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.

Diversity and Inclusion

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

Apply and further information

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Contact point for applicants

Salary range

£74,061 - £79,037 per year