Head of the Chief Inspectors Office

Job summary

Railway Safety ensures duty-holders in the railway industry manage health and safety risks effectively and comply with their statutory duties.

The Chief Inspector’s Office (CIO) is a new team that’s being created to safeguard delivery of the Railway Safety Directorate’s (RSD’s) work, ensuring clear accountability, strong assurance and proactive risk management. It will also play an important role in supporting continuous improvement within RSD, including through programme management leadership and oversight of change management.

Job description

As the first Head of the CIO, you will shape the function from day one. You will build on and expand the governance for RSD’s work, providing focused assurance and oversight while avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy. You will provide strategic advice and constructive challenge to the Chief Inspector and will carry the authority to take certain decisions on their behalf, enabling them to focus on strategic leadership of the directorate while enabling progress for colleagues. You will assure the quality and clarity of content entering Board-level forums, provide forward looking insight, and anticipate strategic risks and delivery constraints.

In short, you will enable better, faster decisions, reduce delays and rework, and help to keep statutory and other commitments on track, while ensuring the Chief Inspector has the right intelligence at the right time to lead the Directorate strategically, at pace, and with impact.

Person specification

For key responsibilities please see the attached job description.

Additional Information

At ORR, our hybrid working means that we currently work from our workplace location a minimum of 40% of our working week, although requirements to attend other offsite locations for official business, also count towards this level of attendance. Working arrangements are subject to continuous review.

Behaviours

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

• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Making Effective Decisions
• Managing a Quality Service

Technical skills

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

• Demonstrable expertise in producing and quality‑assuring concise, evidence‑based papers for senior decision‑making, clearly framing options, risks and recommendations, and applying decision‑readiness standards and checklists.

Benefits

A Civil Service Pension with employer contribution of 28.97%

Details of our employee benefits can be found in the attached Candidate Information Pack.

Find out what our colleagues have to say about their ORR careers Our people Office of Rail and Road (orr.gov.uk).

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, Experience and Technical skills.For information on the selection process, please see the attached Candidate Information Pack and Job Description.

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a 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

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 : Human Resources
• Email : Peopleservices@orr.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : Peopleservices@orr.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, in the first instance, you should contact ORR via email: peopleservices@orr.gov.uk If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission: Visit the Civil Service Commission website here: https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/recruitment/recruitme…

Attachments

Head of the Chief Inspectors Office Job Description Opens in new window (pdf, 166kB)ORR Job Information Pack Opens in new window (pdf, 1205kB)