Deputy Director – Defence, Diplomacy and Intelligence Full Time

HM TREASURY-1

If you’re interested in making a difference to people’s lives, HM Treasury can offer you an exciting opportunity to influence decision making that affects the whole of the UK.

About the team

Defence, Diplomacy and Intelligence (DDI) is a small (c. 17 people) close-knit team working across National Security strategy and spending. We are responsible for a fascinating and exciting area, including working closely across the Ministry of Defence, No10, the Intelligence Agencies, Counter-Terrorism and Cyber security.

Our main focus is the effective and efficient use of taxpayer’s money to deliver the UK’s defence and security objectives, in line with HM Treasury’s economic and public finance objectives.

About the role

We are looking for a Deputy Director to join us in a unique role. It spans the full breadth of National Security issues and brings them together across the Treasury to ensure that resources are allocated to threats and priorities in the most efficient and effective way, and in support of the Treasury’s economic objectives.

This is a fascinating time to work on national security as we build towards the next Parliament: we are completing implementation of a major increase in the defence budget from Spending Review 2020; supporting Ukraine to fight the first major war in Europe since WW2; and addressing rising geopolitical tensions across the globe, most recently in the Middle East.

In this role, you’ll have the exciting opportunity to work right at the heart of the UK’s security system, supporting it to become better value, more productive and effective, as well as sitting on the front line of our domestic and international crisis response.

Key accountabilities:

1. Play an active role in the leadership of the Public Services Group through membership of the Group Management Team. This will include leading on key corporate projects. These can be tailored to the successful candidate’s interests, but as an example the current postholder is the Diversity and Inclusion Champion for the group.
2. Lead and manage the Defence, Diplomacy and Intelligence team. The postholder will need to support the team in adapting to emerging challenges, and contributing to broader corporate initiatives, including growing our presence in the Treasury’s Darlington office.
3. Oversight of National Security spending and performance to ensure taxpayers’ money is spent appropriately, efficiently, is value for money and delivers against NSC and Integrated Review priorities and objectives. You will specifically supervise: c. £65bn of annual spending across the Ministry of Defence; the UK Intelligence Community; cross government Counter-Terrorism spending and Cyber spending; and the newly established Integrated Security Fund.
4. Scrutiny and assurance of Major Projects. The MoD has the largest portfolio on the Government’s Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP) and the team assures the highest number of spending approvals and business cases across HMT. This includes the balance of and choices around military capabilities, especially within the MoD’s ten-year Equipment Plan. You will need to work with experts in the Government’s project and commercial functions to support MoD to deliver.

For a full list of accountabilities, please follow the apply link.

About you

To be successful in this role, experience of working on defence and security or spending control is crucial. You’ll need the ability to build, maintain and motivate a strong and diverse team that operates in a politically sensitive environment and with a constantly changing policy agenda. Further, you’ll have excellent stakeholder management skills; able to influence where needed, give difficult messages and lead tough negotiations. Lastly, collaborative working with colleagues and across government will be necessary to forge consensus on important defence and security matters.

You will likely to need to attend regular in-person meetings in London, sometimes at short notice, and there is also likely to be some out-of-hours calls on your time.

About us

HM Treasury is proud of a diverse and inclusive work environment, committed to fairness and the promotion of equality of opportunity for all. We know that having a range of experiences, ways of working and thinking makes us a stronger organisation, better at developing policy that is reflective of the communities we serve. We embrace different views and experiences and value the fresh perspective that people from a variety of circumstances bring to the work we do. We welcome applications from candidates who have not previously worked for the Civil Service, mid- and late-career changers with transferrable skills, people from all backgrounds and circumstances regardless of disability, ethnicity, LGBT+ identity and socio-economic status.

Some of the Benefits our people love!

• 25 days annual leave (rising to 30 after 5 years), plus 8 public holidays and the King’s birthday (unless you have a legacy arrangement as an existing Civil Servant). Additionally, we operate flexitime systems, allowing employees to take up to an additional 2 days off each month
• Flexible working patterns (part-time, job-share, condensed hours)
• Generous parental and adoption leave packages
• Access to a generous Defined Benefit pension scheme with employer contributions of 27%
• Access to a cycle-to-work salary sacrifice scheme and season ticket advances
• A range of active staff networks, based around interests (e.g. analysts, music society, sports and social club) and diversity (e.g. women in the Treasury, ethnic minority network, LGBT network, faith and belief network) For more information about the role and how to apply, please follow the apply link.

If you need any reasonable adjustments to take part in the selection process, please tell us about this in your online application form, or speak to the recruitment team at