Second Permanent Secretary

An opportunity to join and lead an outstanding team at the Department of Health and Social Care.
As the Second Permanent Secretary, jointly with the Permanent Secretary, you will represent the Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) at the highest level, providing strong leadership to the department by translating Ministers’ ambitions into a clear vision to staff and setting a direction for that vision.
You will lead on the engagement with stakeholders, which include senior leaders across the NHS and wider health and social care sectors; Ministers; and Senior Civil Servants across government. You will be expected to develop and maintain these relationships in order to persuade and influence to achieve the Government’s priorities on health and social care. The Second Permanent Secretary will act as a broad deputy for the Head of Department on all departmental issues. You will also be part of the leadership of the wider Civil Service.
You will have significant Accounting Officer responsibilities as the department is responsible for around £192 billion capital and resource budgets. In addition you will take lead responsibility for the Technology Transformation Portfolio across NHS England (NHSE) and DHSC, which includes a number of Government Major Programmes (eg the Federated Data Platform and Frontline Digitisation Programme) and high profile New Hospitals Programme, another Government Major Programme.
You will be responsible for around half of the core department’s c3,500 staff, with leadership and management responsibility for the finance, strategy and corporate services groups. As such, you will be the lead adviser to the Secretary of State on cross-cutting issues, delivery of key manifesto commitments, strategic finance/performance in the NHS, and the effective functioning and governance of the Department and its Arm's-Length Bodies.

Alongside your salary of £152,000, Department of Health and Social Care contributes £41,040 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
Please see attached candidate brief

Things you need to know

Selection process details
Please see attached candidate brief
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 developed vetting (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.