Deputy Director - Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC) and Migrant Children Policy

Home Office

Hybrid

Expires: Expiring in less than 3 weeks

Social Work

Flexible

£81,000 - £91,000 per year

Job summary

The Asylum Policy, Strategy and Implementation Directorate (APSID) sits within the Asylum Group.

The Directorate brings together a range of functions at the heart of the Asylum Group to ensure that we have a clear strategic direction and ability to lead the asylum system as a single entity. This is a high-profile area of work, subject to intense Ministerial and public scrutiny.

The Asylum Policy Unit is led by two Deputy Directors and is responsible for the management of existing asylum policy as well as the development of new policies and legislation to deliver the government’s vision for asylum.

This Deputy Director role is responsible for ensuring the department has policy capacity targeted to specifically address the unique challenges faced by children, both accompanied and unaccompanied, in the asylum and migration systems. The Deputy Director provides dedicated oversight for the creation of child-centric policies so that children’s rights and welfare are prioritised within these complex systems.

The UASC Policy Team takes the lead to deliver meaningful change across a range of different policy areas, designing extensive legislative and operational reforms to the age assessment process, providing policy oversight for continuous improvement of the National Transfer Scheme and working very closely with operational partners as well as cross-Government stakeholders and local authorities.

The Child Policy Team is responsible for ensuring that we develop policies in line with our duties under section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, and consider how we monitor compliance with our legal duties to children. This includes coordination with other policies covering vulnerable people and safeguarding.

The role requires extensive internal and external stakeholder engagement and effective collaboration across the Home Office and wider government, primarily DfE, MHCLG, and MoJ. The ability to apply strategic thinking and communication styles that build effective relationships, including with local government stakeholders and external NGOs, is vital to successful delivery in this role.

Job description

Provide strong policy leadership on all UASC matters, including age assessment, the National Transfer Scheme and contingency accommodation, navigating through ambiguity within complex systems to deliver at pace. Able to foster a positive organisational culture that gets the best from a diverse team and to embed change.
Provide strategic leadership and expertise on UN Convention Rights of a Child/Section 55 and children's matters, supporting policy units across the department with advice and a central point to drive forward cross cutting risks. Take ownership of the statutory guidance, including ensuring it is updated and maintained.
Lead a cross departmental children’s policy forum for all teams who have responsibility for children’s policy.
Coordination and strategic management of cross cutting activities relating to children, including the department's interaction with the priorities of other government departments.
Work collaboratively in a challenging, multi-stakeholder environment both with operational partners internally and with policy colleagues across government, supporting Ministers where appropriate.
Carry out regular reviews of existing policies impacting children and the guidance which underpins them, ensuring equality impact assessments and other policy assurance frameworks are adhered to.
Lead responses to litigation, including by providing witness statement evidence relating to relevant policies and leading policy development in line with legal judgments.
Ensure teams are skilled and effective to be responsive both to business as usual tasks and in more urgent crisis response situations where required.
Ensure team members are well-supported and enabled to develop and improve whilst in the Unit.
Work closely with and provide support and cover for the other APU Deputy Director to ensure resilience and consistency between the adult and children systems.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

The successful candidate will need to demonstrate their knowledge, experience, capability and behavioural approach to a high standard against the following key criteria:

Strong leadership skills, with proven leadership in a large and complex organisation, comfortable working with ambiguity in a fast-paced and high-profile area and an ability to build, empower, and motivate a high performing, resilient, and inclusive workforce;
Extensive stakeholder management skills and an ability to operate effectively in a political environment, with the credibility and interpersonal skills to command the trust and confidence of Ministers and to build and maintain positive stakeholder relationships;
Strong policy experience with evidence of developing and implementing major and / or cross-cutting policies and strategies and the ability to lead delivery of transformative policy change;
The flexibility and personal resilience to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances and to cope well under pressure;
Excellent communication and influencing skills with proven experience of building credibility and working collaboratively across Government with senior officials and Ministers to deliver outcomes; and
Understanding of one or more of immigration policy, asylum policy, and children’s legislation and operational practice

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £81,000, Home Office contributes £23,465 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

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

It is essential that in your written application you give evidence, using examples, of proven experience. These responses will be developed and discussed with candidates invited for interview.

A CV - setting out your career history, highlighting specific responsibilities and achievements that are relevant for this role, including details where budgets and numbers of people managed, relevant achievements in recent posts, together with reasons for any gaps within the last two years;

A Statement of Suitability – (limited to 1250 words) explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience, provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the essential criteria in the person specification.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

Security

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).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.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 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

£81,000 - £91,000 per year