Director General Public Safety Group

Job summary

This is one of the most senior leadership roles in government, accountable for delivering the Home Secretary’s priorities on crime reduction and policing reform.

As Director General for the Public Safety Group, you will lead a major portfolio spanning policing, crime reduction, safeguarding and tackling violence against women and girls, with policing at its core. You will work with partners across the Criminal Justice System to help improve its operation and build public confidence.

You will lead a large and complex organisation of around 2000 staff, with responsibility for a significant financial and operational portfolio, overseeing major national programmes and delivery across England and Wales. Your focus will be to translate ministerial priorities into clear plans, strengthening policing capability and performance and securing tangible improvements for the public.

You will have responsibility for a budget of c. £14bn.

Job description

Key accountabilities

You Will:

• Provide strategic leadership for policing, driving reform, strengthening governance and improving performance through direct engagement with Chief Constables and national policing bodies.
• Lead delivery of the Police Reform White Paper, driving fundamental reform of policing structures, governance and performance.
• Hold the system to account for delivery against key priorities, including serious violence, violence against women and girls and neighbourhood policing.
• Lead the government approach to tackling violence against women and girls, driving cross system coordination and ensuring sustained progress against this priority.
• Sponsor key public bodies, including the National Crime Agency, ensuring strong alignment to ministerial priorities and delivery outcomes.
• Lead major national transformation and technology programmes that enable effective frontline policing.
• Represent the Home Office with authority across policing, Parliament and public forums.
• Take decisions across a significant financial and operational portfolio, ensuring prioritisation and value for money.
• Support the Home Secretary during high-profile operational incidents, providing advice on immediate response and longer-term handling.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

The successful candidate will need to demonstrate:

• Senior leadership and delivery - Experience leading large organisations or operating across complex systems, ideally in policing or public safety, with a strong track record of delivering sustained results.
• Strategy into delivery - Ability to set clear strategic direction and translate policy or ministerial intent into effective, deliverable plans, driving system wide change at pace.
• Systems leadership and transformation - Proven ability to lead and influence across large, complex systems, driving transformation through collaboration, alignment of partners and effective use of levers beyond direct control.
• Advising Ministers/Senior Leaders - The ability to use confidence and judgement to advise Ministers/senior leaders on sensitive and high-profile and often ambiguous issues.
• Stakeholder leadership and collaboration - Exceptional ability to build trust, maintain credibility and influence a broad and diverse set of stakeholders across organisational, professional and partner boundaries.
• Communication and public leadership - Highly effective communicator with credibility and resilience to operate under Parliamentary, media and public scrutiny.
• Civil Service values and integrity - Demonstrates integrity, impartiality and accountability, ensuring decisions are taken in the public interest.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £135,000, Home Office contributes £39,109 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

Online Application Please follow the Job Advert instructions on the Civil Service Jobs website to apply online by 12:00hrs Monday 22 June 2026.

You will be asked to provide:

A CV – (1250 words) setting out your career history, highlighting specific responsibilities and achievements that are relevant for this role. Please provide reasons for any gaps within the last two years.​​

A Statement of Suitability – (1250 words) providing examples of how your experience meets the essential criteria.​​ This is your opportunity to give examples and show how your skills and experience fit the job requirements.

When writing a supporting statement, it is important that you:

• Read the job specification so you are clear about the job requirements. Structure your personal statement to reflect the essential criteria listed in the advert.
• Make sure you provide evidence against each of the listed criteria - i.e. ‘experienced in leading high performing and diverse teams and promoting inclusivity.’ When have you led a team, how large, what did you do to promote inclusivity, how did you handle diversity?
• Ensure any evidence you provide demonstrates the impact of your actions in that situation, provide statistical evidence where relevant.

For more information on how to write a personal statement, click here.

Guidance on the use of AI Please review the guidance Artificial intelligence and recruitment application. to understand the acceptable use of AI for your application.

Before you submit an application, we will ask you to confirm the information you provide is true and accurate. More details about this will be provided in the application form and we may reject applications where AI is used inappropriately at any stage of the process.

Important information about the application process

• Once submitted, applications cannot be amended, so please ensure you are content with your submission before applying.
• Interviews and any Ministerial meetings will take place in central London.
• Expenses incurred during the recruitment process will not normally be reimbursed. In exceptional circumstances, this may be considered where agreed in advance with the SCS Recruitment Team

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

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

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) 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

Job contact :

• Name : Home Office SCS Recruitment Team
• Email : SCSRecruitment@homeoffice.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : SCSRecruitment@homeoffice.gov.uk

Attachments

Director General Public Safety Group - Candidate Pack Opens in new window (pdf, 1796kB)