Child Maintenance Service Application and Maintenance Director's Office Support role

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for welfare, pensions and child maintenance policy. As the UK's biggest public service department it administers a range of working age, pension age, disability and ill health benefits to around 18 million claimants and customers.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is responsible for all aspects of child maintenance in Great Britain. Our role is to promote financial responsibility, and to encourage and support private maintenance arrangements, as well as provide a statutory maintenance service.

The CMS Application and Maintenance Director's Office Support role is a high profile role within a fast paced, changeable and demanding environment. CMS is undergoing a significant period of change as we drive a crucial transformation agenda, whilst continuing to deliver a politically significant and fundamentally crucial service to millions of separated families around the country who depend upon the work we do.

Your main focus will be in supporting activity within the Applications and Maintenance structure, whilst remaining linked to the wider Directorate, as it continues to be colleague and customer focused, efficient and transforms its service offering optimising contact channels and digital services.

The role will involve regular contact with the Director in an office support role, working closely with; the applications and maintenance leadership team, other Director's and their support teams and Operational Leadership Team members including Partners, Ministerial office, People & Capability partners and other DWP directorates where required.

You will be expected to keep abreast of developments affecting CMS, bringing items of interest to the attention of the CMS Applications and Maintenance Director. The job requires flexibility and openness to change, excellent drafting skills, outstanding team-working and communications skills., Support the CMS Applications and Maintenance Director across the full range of business priorities in Child Maintenance, ensuring that they are supported on a day-to-day basis with briefings and other information needed to carry out the role effectively.

Directly line manage the CMS Applications and Maintenance Support team. Manage actions and responses to Director's e-mails, prioritising correspondence based on importance and urgency, ensuring that systems are in place for all e-mails and correspondence to be dealt with effectively and within deadlines.

Perform secretariat duties for the CMS Applications and Maintenance Director and Leadership team as required, arranging meetings, preparing agendas, capturing actions and decisions, following up on outstanding actions.

Liaise on a regular basis with other Director's Offices, the Director General's Office, MPs offices, working collaboratively to organise Director's time effectively whilst prioritising activities.

Deal with and escalate urgent/high profile matters professionally and effectively, identifying and collaborating with various senior leader stakeholders.

Play a significant role in the wider team's communication activities, via multiple channels.

Use own initiative to take ownership of discreet areas of work, and pick up and handle cross-cutting work on the Directors behalf.