Organisation Design and Development Practitioner – Census

Job summary

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social and demographic topics. These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution, and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime, and migration.

The ONS are looking for an experienced Organisation Design and Development (OD&D) practitioner with proven delivery within a complex organisational/ programme environment to support the delivery of the next population Census in 2031. Using your vast OD&D experience you will lead/ support cross-cutting Census programme organisational design and development change initiatives in partnership with organisational leaders and the service design teams to enable the successful delivery of the Census programme to timescales and quality required.

Census 2031 represents our most ambitious data collection project yet – a once-in-a-decade opportunity to capture a complete picture of everyone living in England and Wales. Building on the digital success of 2021, we're pioneering new ways to reach every household and community, ensuring no one is left uncounted. This vital work will provide the foundation for policy decisions, resource allocation, and community planning for the next decade.

Job description

This is an exciting senior specialist role at the heart of the Census Organisation Design and Development team. You will lead the design and delivery of organisation design and development solutions that enable the Office for National Statistics to successfully deliver the next UK Population Census.

You will take the lead on complex organisation design activity across the programme shaping operating models, structures, roles and capabilities that support delivery at scale. Working closely with senior leaders and programme teams, you will provide expert advice, constructive challenge and assurance to ensure solutions are evidence based, sustainable and aligned with ONS strategy.

This role requires strong professional Organisation Design expertise, with the ability to lead through influence, whilst working in complex, time-bound programme.

Role Responsibilities:

• Lead end-to-end organisation design activity across designated areas of the Census programme, evolving designs throughout the programme life cycle.
• Review operating models and develop organisational structures, accountabilities and role profiles to ensure clarity, efficiency and confidence in delivery.
• Apply systems thinking and industry best practice so designs reflect interdependencies between people, processes, technology and governance.
• Support organisation development interventions that strengthen leadership capability, effective ways of working and collaborative behaviours across Census teams.
• Design and facilitate workshops and senior leader discussions to diagnose issues, explore options and co-create organisational solutions.
• Provide expert OD&D advice, challenge and recommendations to senior leaders, supporting them to embed organisational changes and sustain them through delivery phases.
• Drive continuous improvement by capturing learning, sharing good practice, strengthening OD tools and approaches, and building strong stakeholder relationships across the Census programme and ONS.
• Become an active member in the cross government OD&D community of practice.

Person specification

EssentialCriteria:

• Proven experience of using best practice Organisation Design approaches and/or methodologies to design organisational structures, roles, capabilities and ways of working that enable effective programme delivery.
• Proven ability to analyse a range of information inform options/recommendations and decisions. Strong evidence of building, maintaining and influencing excellent stakeholder relationships within and outside span of control.
• Demonstration of authentic communication skills, using multiple methods to meet individual and business needs. Sound report drafting skills that are clear and concise for the end user.
• Ability to use own initiative, plan and identify when a change in approach is required.

Qualifications

CIPD Level 5 Organisation Design and Development qualification, or equivalent including work experience or willingness to work towards.

Behaviours

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Working Together
• Communicating and Influencing
• Delivering at Pace

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £41,985, Office for National Statistics contributes £12,163 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our valued colleagues across the organisation.

Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that our careers site will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.

Inclusion & Accessibility

At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.

As part of our application process, you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process that you need. If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.

If you would like an accessible version of any of the attachments or recruitment documents below or linked to in this advert, please contact the recruitment team who will be happy to assist.

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.

Security Clearance:

The requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for 3 consecutive years immediately prior to applying.

A lack of UK residency in itself is not always a bar to security clearance but the Department will need to consider eligibility by exception on a case-by-case basis. You will be asked to provide information regarding your UK residency during your application, and failure to provide this will result in your application being rejected.

If you are unsure that you meet the eligibility above, please read the information available on Gov.uk on this link, or contact the recruitment email on the advert before applying to discuss, as failure to meet the residency requirements will result in your security clearance application being rejected and any offer of employment being withdrawn.

At the point of SC application, you will need to provide or give access to the following evidence:

• Departmental or company records (personnel files, staff reports, sick leave reports and security records)
• UK criminal records covering both spent and unspent criminal records
• Your credit and financial history with a credit reference agency
• Security Services records

Application process:

Number of Stages: 2 stage process

Stage 1: Application

Stage 2: Interview

Stage 1 - Application

The assessment process at the application stage will be based on your work history, CV, skills, experience, and personal statement. It is important that your application is tailored to highlight the skills, knowledge, and experience relevant to the role.

A personal statement is required at application stage, the maximum word-count allowed is 1250, which should not be exceeded. You should provide evidence for each essential skill criterion listed in the person specification. As these criteria are scored, it is advisable to give clear examples for each one, including the impact of your actions, ideally utilising the STAR technique (Situation, Task, Action, Result).

Please note that Success Profiles Behaviour examples are not required at this stage of the application process.

In instances where a high number of applications are received, the sift pass mark may be adjusted, and candidates will be invited to interview based on merit order, i.e., those with the highest scores.

Stage 2 – Interview

If invited to interview, you will be assessed using techniques aligned with the Civil Service Success Profiles framework, covering all behaviours listed in the job advert.

You will be required to provide a 5 minute presentation at interview. The presentation topic will be provided to candidates who have passed the initial online application stage, on the day of their interview, you will be given time to prepare. This presentation will assess candidates against the Success Profiles Behaviour'Seeing the Bigger Picture'.

Interviews will be held online via Microsoft Teams.

A reserve list may be held for a period up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made.

Sift - w/c 20th April

Interviews – from 5th May

Dates are subject to change

For the full terms and conditions of the post, please see attachment below.

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.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 : Sandra Fox-Macey
• Email : recruitmentoperations@ons.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : Recruitmentoperations@ons.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 recruitment.complaints@ons.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission

Attachments

2721 Advert 1B Permanent - ONS National v1-00 Opens in new window (pdf, 83kB)