Head of Honours and Public Appointments
| Posting date: | 27 August 2025 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £67,170 to £78,192 per year |
| Additional salary information: | National: £67,170 - £76,117 London: £70,845 - £78,192 |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 04 September 2025 |
| Location: | Cardiff |
| Company: | Government Recruitment Service |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 420271/3 |
Summary
We are one of the largest contributors to the UK Honours system, uniquely represented on two Honours Committees by the DBT Permanent Secretary (the Economy and FCDO Committees) and we continue to implement ambitious plans on improving the spread and diversity of how honours are awarded across society and DBT stakeholders. Streamlining and modernising how we initiate, nurture and decide honours nominations - engaging with stakeholders across the department and beyond - is key to our success. The DBT Honours team plays a pivotal role not only in generating high quality, worthy honours nominations across the business and trade community but also in enhancing the wider honours system through active engagement and shaping of the Economy Committee in particular.
DBT has one of the largest appointments portfolios in government, responsible for over 300 public appointments and over 500 other ministerial appointments across a diverse range of bodies and roles. As the government refreshes its strategy for public appointments, our role in the DBT appointments team is critical in helping shape a more diverse, transparent and technology-enabled process with candidate care at its heart. In the last year the team has achieved great success in enabling the department to appoint extremely high calibre individuals to key appointments – some new and some long-standing. In the period ahead we need to build on this success by better harnessing the potential of technology - including the government’s Appointments Tracking System (ATS) and wider technological developments like AI - to drive even greater outcomes through a more streamlined set of value-added processes. Developing expertise across the team and the wider department on the value of public appointments will also be a key focus.
This is a new role reflecting the growing importance and impact of both public appointments and honours in helping DBT achieve its ambition to drive growth in the UK economy. The postholder will shape and lead an existing team through an exciting and challenging programme of transformation to ensure that an already high-performing team can achieve even greater success through better utilisation of technology and modern ways of working to achieve its outcomes. Leading a team through ambiguity and change to maintain high quality services to senior and demanding stakeholders will be at the heart of this role and the successful candidate will need to be able to work independently and with strong judgement to achieve their own, their team’s and the department’s goals.
In particular the role will:
- Oversee the development of a new operating framework for DBT public appointments ensuring we remain at the cutting edge of the government’s agenda and evolving strategy for this work through engaging with stakeholders across the department, its partner organisations and beyond;
- Develop and deliver an enhanced programme for streamlining honours and appointments processes with excellent use of technology and data at the heart of driving improvements;
- Develop a clear and executable plan for delivering both honours and appointments work programmes with effective and timely communication and engagement with senior leaders across the department and with candidate care front and centre.
- Build the capability and create the appropriate capacity within the team to deliver an ambitious agenda against the backdrop of a challenging spending review and fiscal envelope for DBT and government more widely;
- Maintain and enhance the quality of service and professional advice to senior stakeholders including Ministers, Special Advisers and officials across the department on honours and appointments issues.
- Provide team leadership and direction for a high-performing, highly engaged team.
- Act as a key member of the senior leadership team across wider governance, strategy and private office teams.
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