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The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) delivers vital services to millions of people across the UK. At the heart of this work sits Strategic Finance and Business Strategy (SFBS), providing financial and strategic leadership, shaping departmental priorities and maintaining DWP’s critical relationship with HM Treasury.

We are seeking an outstanding leader to join as Head of Departmental Planning and Performance. This is a high-profile role with significant influence across the Department, offering the opportunity to shape strategic decision-making, drive performance improvement and provide assurance on the delivery of ministerial priorities.

About You

We are looking for a strategic, collaborative leader who can operate confidently in a complex, high-profile environment. You will bring experience of strategic planning, performance management, assurance, governance or corporate strategy in a large organisation, together with strong analytical judgement and the ability to turn complex information into clear, practical advice.

You will be a confident influencer with excellent stakeholder management skills, able to work across organisational boundaries and with senior leaders. You will balance strategic thinking with delivery focus, build capability in others and lead a high-performing, inclusive team.

Why Join Us?

This is an opportunity to make a direct impact on the delivery of government priorities and public services that matter to millions of citizens. Working at the centre of departmental decision-making, you will help shape the future direction of one of the largest and most complex organisations in government

Job description

The Role

You will lead DWP’s strategic planning, performance management and assurance function, ensuring ministers and the Executive Team have a clear, credible view of performance, risk and deliverability. You will oversee the Departmental Quarterly Performance Report, lead the refresh of DWP’s Strategic Plan and support performance reporting to the centre of government.

A key part of the role will be advising on departmental deliverability during fiscal events, including Budgets, Spending Reviews and Spring Statements. Through high-quality analysis, insight and assurance, you will help DWP stay focused on delivering outcomes efficiently and effectively.

For more information about the role have a look at the Candidate Pack

Person specification

The successful candidate must be able to demonstrate their knowledge, experience and skills against the following essential criteria:

Exceptional strategic leadership skills, with the ability to set clear direction for the team, inspire confidence, and lead a multi‑site, multi‑disciplinary team. Experience leading both generalist and specialist (e.g. analytics, performance, or operational teams) functions, driving robust assessment of organisational performance and continuous improvement at pace.
Strong strategic, analytical and problem‑solving capability, able to assess organisational readiness, interpret complex system‑wide issues, and translate strategic intent into practical frameworks, processes and products that support delivery of the department's objectives.
Proven ability to build strong, trust‑based relationships with senior stakeholders, including SCS colleagues, executive or board-level leaders across a variety of corporate functions, skilled at navigating competing priorities, influencing decisions, and aligning stakeholders around shared strategic outcomes. Highly effective communicator, able to distil complex issues into clear, compelling insights and advice to support and encourage confident, evidence-based decisions.
Strong track record of delivering complex, high-impact work in fast-paced environments, balancing long-term transformation with immediate priorities. Demonstrates the ability to deliver through others, maintaining high professional standards under pressure.
Experience operating effectively within large, complex, and highly governed environments (public, private, and/or regulated sectors), with a strong understanding of governance, corporate culture, and cross-organisational working. Able to navigate decision-making structures. Able to lead teams to adopt digital tools and use data to drive insight and high-quality outcomes.

Behaviours

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

Leadership
Making Effective Decisions
Communicating and Influencing
Delivering at Pace
Managing a Quality Service

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £86,000, Department for Work and Pensions contributes £24,914 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).

DWP have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes:

Working patterns to support work/life balance such as job sharing and compressed hours.
Generous annual leave – at least 25 days on entry, increasing up to 30 days over time (pro–rata for part time employees), plus 9 days public and privilege leave.
Support for financial wellbeing, including interest-free season ticket loans for travel, a cycle to work scheme and an employee discount scheme.
Health and wellbeing support including our Employee Assistance Programme for specialist advice and counselling and the opportunity to join HASSRA a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly).
Family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and shared parental leave pay after 1 year’s continuous service.
Funded learning and development to support progress in your role and career. This includes industry recognised qualifications and accreditations, coaching, mentoring and talent development programmes.
An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join professional and interpersonal networks including Women’s Network, National Race Network, National Disability Network (THRIVE) and many more.

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.

Join us and play a pivotal role in ensuring DWP delivers its objectives efficiently, effectively and with lasting impact.

Application Process

To apply for this post, you will need to complete the online application http://www.gatenbysanderson.com/job/GSe134302 process outlined below no later than 23:55pm on Monday 31st August 2026.

A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years;
A personal statement (maximum 1250) 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.

Failure to submit both documents will mean the panel only have limited information on which to assess your application against the criteria in the person specification.

As part of the online application process, you will be asked a number of diversity-related questions. If you do not wish to provide a declaration on any of the particular characteristics, you will have the option to select 'prefer not to say’. All monitoring data will be treated in the strictest confidence and will not be provided to the selection panel. The information you provide when submitting your application will help us monitor our progress towards the Civil Service becoming the most inclusive employer.

A reserve list will be held for up to 12 months, which we may use to fill future similar vacancies for candidates who are considered appointable following interview.

Please see attached Candidate Pack for further information regarding the role and recruitment process.

Reasonable Adjustments

At DWP we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, especially those that are underrepresented in our workforce. We consider visible and non-visible disabilities, neurodiversity or learning differences, chronic medical conditions, or mental ill health. Examples include dyslexia, epilepsy, autism, chronic fatigue, or schizophrenia.

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should contact senior.recruitment@dwp.gov.uk as soon as possible, before the closing date to discuss your needs. Complete the “Reasonable Adjustments” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what additional support or adjustments you might need during the recruitment process.

For further information regarding reasonable adjustments, please see following link: Reasonable Adjustments , Civil Service Careers

For a confidential initial discussion about the role, please get in touch with recruitment advisers at GatenbySanderson:

Sophie Hester: sophie.hester@gatenbysanderson.com

Hilda Gjika: hilda.gjika@gatenbysanderson.com

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 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 : Sophie Hester
Email : sophie.hester@gatenbysanderson.com

Recruitment team

Email : senior.recruitment@dwp.gov.uk

Further information

What do I do if I want to make a complaint?
The law requires that selection for appointment to the Civil Service is on merit on the basis of fair and open competition as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's Recruitment Principles. If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should in the first instance contact: senior.recruitment@dwp.gov.uk
If you are not satisfied with the response, you receive you can contact the Civil Service Commission.

senior.recruitment@dwp.gov.uk

Attachments

Candidate Pack Head of Departmental Planning and Performance Opens in new window (pdf, 524kB)

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Salary range

£86,000 - £99,600 per year