Deputy Director Strategy Governance & Transformation

Lead the strategy for Legal Group, connecting to HMRC’s purpose and strategy. Oversee the design and delivery of Legal Group’s transformation, including Digital transformation and an ambitious AI programme across Legal Group’s functions to deliver increased productivity, drawing on an annual investment budget of c£3m. The role also involves overseeing Legal Group’s, governance, finance and risk functions, with responsibility for Legal Group’s £160m budget, and having overall accountability for strategic and planning functions within Legal Group.

The post holder will be a key member of the RCS senior leadership team, the Legal Group senior leadership group, HMRC’s senior leaders group, and will be expected to make a corporate leadership contribution.

The post holder will sit on key strategy, design and transformation governance boards more widely within HMRC supporting and influencing change across the enterprise, under the new HMRC transformation governance structure. The post holder will also attend Legal Group SLT meetings and a key aspect of the role is to work closely with the Legal Group Director General as well as Directors.

Job Description

• Work collaboratively across Legal Group teams and the Legal Group senior leaders group to lead the implementation of the Legal Group Strategy Roadmap.
• Develop the next phase of Legal Group’s strategy, setting direction for 1900 people and planning for the Spending Review 2027.
• Develop and deliver Legal Group’s ambitious transformation agenda, particularly digital and AI, and ensure alignment with HMRC’s wider Transformation Programme.
• Oversee the project delivery profession in Legal Group, ensuring change is delivered in accordance with best practice from the Association of Project Management.
• Lead and assure the delivery of efficiencies across the change portfolio, ensuring Legal Group is able to evidence increased productivity.
• Lead and oversee a robust approach to risk and assurance across Legal Group, maintaining high standards and ensuring the Group continues to meet all of HMRC’s standards.
• Work across HMRC to influence design and development of programmes appropriately, e.g. Enterprise Customer Relationship Management and Making Tax Digital, to leverage investment to support change in Legal Group, ensure legal and litigation requirements are considered from an end-to-end perspective and the business implications for Legal Group’s operational delivery business are understood and factored in.
• Ensure Legal Group’s transformation programme, finance, benefits profile and business area plans align with Legal Group and HMRC strategies and support Legal Group to implement them.
• Lead Legal Group’s Digital Transformation, including maximising the benefits of AI and Legal Group’s Case Management System (CMS), across Legal Group’s functions. Support the digital team to overcome delivery obstacles and deliver the programme on time and within budget.
• Support the Legal Group Director General and SLT members in identifying, assessing and making key strategic decisions.
• Assess the extent to which Legal Group is delivering its strategies and advise on relative business prioritisation and corrective action.
• Evaluate the performance of the strategies against their objectives, and refresh them as necessary.
• Ensure appropriate governance and reporting processes are in place for the programme and business planning within Legal Group and to support Legal Group SLT to facilitate their decision making.
• Build influential relationships with finance colleagues, HMT, HMCTS and MoJ to secure investment from SR27 and drive forward integration of digital systems to deliver efficiency savings and bring significant improvements to the customer experience of litigation.

Person Specification

• Highly articulate and credible, with the personal impact to influence and challenge effectively at the most senior levels, consistently delivering, inspiring and engaging with meaningful messages about the future direction.
• A proven track record of setting direction and driving transformation in complex organisations from the formulation of strategy through to delivery within an environment of constrained resources and ability to overcome resistance to change.
• An aptitude for striking a balance between strategic innovation and operational delivery, demonstrating good judgement and pragmatism.
• A demonstrable commitment to the principle of continuous improvement and development for building a performance culture.
• A track record of strong leadership leading high performing teams, an empowering style and evidence of active corporate leadership.
• Ability to think and act strategically and to develop practical, creative and innovative solutions, business models and approaches to drive these forward.