UK: Deputy Director – Head of Joint Combating Drugs Unit | Cannabis Law Report | How to order Skittles Moonrock online

The Public Safety Group’s role is to keep the public safe by cutting crime (including by disrupting the highest harm criminals), tackling its drivers, bringing criminals to justice and protecting the vulnerable. We work closely with partners across policing, the National Crime Agency, and fire and rescue services to ensure they are as efficient and effective as they can be in delivering front line public services.

To deliver on our mission we operate locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. We fund the work of a wide range of front-line agencies and are committed to supporting innovation and good practice sharing across the systems we lead. We are also delivering the Emergency Services Mobile Communication Programme – a major national IT programme to improve communications between police, fire and ambulance services.

The Joint Combating Drugs Unit (JCDU) was created in July 2021 in response to a new cross-government approach to drugs. Its purpose is to develop and oversee delivery of the 10-year drug strategy. It represents a whole-of-government approach, sitting across all six Departments (HO, DHSC, MoJ, DWP, DLUHC and DfE), reporting through into the cross-government Permanent Secretary and Minister.

As a cross-government Unit of around 20, it brings together skills and expertise from across its sponsoring departments and is taking the lead in delivering a strong and impactful cross-government approach to combating drugs.

• Senior official leadership of the cross-Government drugs strategy, working closely with a broad range of key partners locally, nationally and internationally. Bringing all partners together to transform HMG’s approach to drug misuse over a ten-year period.
• Reviewing the ambitions and priorities of the 10-year drugs strategy to maximise its impact across the Government’s missions, particularly Safer Streets (crime) and Health. Spotting and mitigating emerging and evolving risks, such as on synthetic opioids, and ensuring the strategic approach responds and adapts accordingly.
• Tracking and driving the delivery of the strategy across all departments and partners, including by spotting and seizing strategic opportunities and mitigating cross-cutting risks. Responsibility for delivering individual aspects of the drugs strategy, such as treatment and recovery (DHSC), or disruption of the drug supply (HO) remains with their existing departments and respective Secretaries of State.
• Supporting and advising the cross-Government drugs minister and enabling ministers from the key departments to take a collective leadership approach. The JCDU’s work is additional and complementary to existing policy ownership, cohering a system-wide view on HMG’s ambitions in combating drug misuse, assessing confidence in delivery, impact and advising on strategic prioritisation and investment decisions.
• Cohering the spending review priorities and strategic narrative in relation to the drugs strategy, working closely with colleagues in the Safer Streets and Health missions.

As a joint unit, the JCDU is hosted by the Home Office and in this role you will be a Home Office employee; however your reporting and accountability is through the cross-government structures.

Essential Criteria:

The successful candidate will need to demonstrate their knowledge, experience, capability and behavioural approach to a high standard against the following key criteria:

• An inspiring, confident and empowering leader, who can set strategic direction, lead effectively through ambiguity, scrutiny and pressure and get the best out of a diverse workforce through promoting an inclusive, high-performance culture.
• Taking an effective whole system approach to complex, dynamic issues with the ability to track progress and analyse issues to inform strategy and policy and translate this into real world impact and outcomes.
• Building and managing strategic relationships and partnerships with an ability to win the confidence and buy in of a wide range of internal and external senior stakeholders, including identifying and resolving conflicts and tensions where these arise.
• Delivery of complex, cross-government challenges, drawing upon system leadership and promoting collaboration across boundaries to impact organisational culture and performance.

Desirable Criteria:

• Working in the centre of government with high levels of political astuteness and experience of delivering across a highly complex set of systems.
• Experience in the field of combating drugs, public health, crime reduction/prevention, and/ or wider public policy.

1.A CV – setting out your career history, highlighting specific responsibilities and achievements that are relevant for this role, including details where budgets and numbers of people managed, relevant achievements in recent posts, together with reasons for any gaps within the last two years;

2.A Statement of Suitability – (limited to 1250 words) 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.

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

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

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)

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.