Head of Learning Delivery

Working with and gaining confidence of people will be a key part of your daily role. Whether this be driving an inclusive, engaging environment for your people to work in, where diversity is celebrated or with a multitude of local and national stakeholders with varying priorities, including conversations about capability requirements and solutions.

A short overview by the Deputy Director is provided within the candidate pack to give you a flavour of Learning Design and Delivery.

What will you be doing?

The successful candidate will lead a team of over 600 learning professionals, based across the UK whose primary role is to plan and deliver large volumes of high-quality learning services to over 80,000 colleagues in DWP.

The delivery team you directly lead is made up of a mix of grades and job roles. You will be responsible for driving a people agenda in your teams that is inclusive and embraces diversity. This includes building the capability of every member of your team to deliver blended learning solutions, including virtual and Face to Face delivery. This people agenda will also include the ongoing journey of professionalisation of your team.

Managing a complex layer of stakeholders across DWP, with a variety of priorities will be an essential part of your role as a senior leader. This will enable your teams to deliver local continuous learning interventions, utilising modern and innovative methods., We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Communicating and Influencing


• Leadership


• Managing a Quality Service


• Working Together, When answering the 3 questions, please read and understand the Key Criteria thoroughly as this is what your written evidence will be assessed against., This should take approximately 45-60 minutes. You will be asked to present photographic identification to the Panel Chair as a preliminary step before the interview commences.


A blended interview aims to be more of a conversation at interview offering a more inclusive approach. You will be asked a mixture of Behaviour and Strength questions starting with a 5-minute presentation on the behaviour, Communicating and Influencing (no visual aids are required). The presentation question will be provided in advance.

Questions for the behaviours will be provided 7 days prior to your interview.

The Strength and Behaviour based questioning explores what the candidate can and has done, but also their potential.

An example of a Behavioural question would be tell me about a time when youve had to deal with a difficult customer. It may help to use one or more examples of a piece of work you have completed or a situation you have been in, and use the WHO or STAR model to explain:

What was the task, How you approached the work/situation and what the Outcomes were, what did you achieve? Or What was the Situation? That were the Tasks? What Action did you take? What were the Results of your actions?

Behaviours assessed for this role are:

• Communicating and Influencing


• Leadership


• Managing a Quality Service


• Working Together


It is difficult to prepare for strength type questions, however you can think through your answers, focus on your achievements and aspects you enjoy and decide how these can be applied in the organisation and role.

While strengths questions are shorter and we do not expect a full STAR response, the panel is interested in your first reaction to the question and information or reasoning to support this.


• As a leader of people, you will provide visible and strong leadership, building and setting a clear direction for a high-performing team to deliver challenging outcomes through collaboration with others. This includes management of a geographically dispersed team, ensuring that members are clear about expected standards of performance, are motivated and professionally developed to provide excellent services.


• Excellent stakeholder management skills with an ability to build trust-based relationships with a wide range of demanding and diverse senior stakeholders. You will be comfortable constructively and effectively challenging stakeholders and working collaboratively with senior leadership teams, to provide Learning expertise and support. You will possess good planning skills, able to balance activities, which enhance and promote a continuous learning culture.


• Highly organised, demonstrating a personal resilience. Adaptable to change and able to work flexibly, often under pressure, ensuring aims and objectives are realised and key stakeholders kept informed.


• You will be able to collaboratively prioritise, multitask, and deliver on competing priorities whilst keeping yourself and others focused. You ensure risks are identified and actions taken to avoid delay.


• You will have involvement in strategic Capability, Learning and Development principles, solutions, and implementation - preferably in large scale environment, combined with excellent attention to detail and communication skills.


Desirable Criteria

• CIPD Advanced Award in Learning and Talent Management (AALTD LEVEL 7)


• CIPD Level 7 Diploma in Strategic Learning and Development, or equivalent.



• For jobs located in Wales, the ability to speak Welsh, Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.


People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

The successful candidate will be part of a wider senior leadership community both within the Learning Design and Delivery team and form part of the Capability Learning and Talent leadership team. This community is heavily involved in horizon scanning on future capability requirements, methodologies and opportunities to co-create with stakeholders and learning professionals from all sectors, new capability solutions fit for the future.,
• Learning and development tailored to your role


• An environment with flexible working options


• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity


• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%, 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.