Connecting Talent to opportunity

Connecting Talent to opportunity

Insight & Research – Digital Payments Horizon Scanning

Expired

Job Description:

  Job description Do you share customers frustrations at how their payments are handled in HMRC? Have you always thought there must be a better way of getting customer payments to the correct records quickly and automatically? Do you have ideas for how we could do things better?   Then this is the ideal opportunity to come and join our Payments Strategy Team to help make those changes!

Forming an integral part of Corporate Treasury (Chief Finance Office Group), we are HMRC's payment process owner. Our explicit purpose is to iron out historic anomalies, standardise all payment procedures and innovate for the future.

Our welcoming team is made up of 50 staff mainly at HO/SO grade based in a number of UK locations. It is headed by 1 x G6 and several G7s.

We have ownership of the HMRC Payments Strategy which describes and drives forward the requirements and objectives for improving the payments infrastructure.

We are at the forefront of exploiting the opportunities provided by Open Banking to improve the customer payment experience. We have recently become the first Govt Dept in the world to deliver a Payment Initiation Service offering to customers in partnership with an external provider.

We have been nominated for and have won several HMRC, Civil Service and Finance industry awards in recent years.

Join our world-leading team and make a difference to both HMRC staff and our customers! We are looking for colleagues to help us identify where HMRC will want to or need to adapt in a changing world. We have some interesting and ambitious work on the horizon. This role offers a platform to influence the direction of travel for how HMRC handles payments over the next 10 years and beyond.

Responsibilities We have just secured substantial funding in the 2021 Spring Budget to progress a variety of projects to meet the future payment needs of both customers and the wider Departmental objectives for a more modern tax and customs system fit for the 21st century.

We are also looking ahead to future banking industry changes and new payment technologies; assessing how these align with Government and departmental strategic objectives and considering the impact of these on both HMRC internal processes and our customers.

Responsibilities include:

• Leading on horizon scanning; keeping yourself up to date with societal and technological shifts in the payments landscape. Exploring these and engaging with internal and external contacts to assess possible opportunities; consider the impacts for HMRC and feed your findings these back into the Payments Strategy.

• Bringing together your own research and analysis you will deliver high quality content providing a coherent narrative on the effects that implementing Payment Strategy initiatives will have on both customer experience and HMRC. You'll also be considering how to inspire changes in customer behaviour to achieve the shifts to more modern payment methods.

• Collaboratively work to identify risks, issues, blockers to strategic goals and how to mitigate against or overcome these.

• Identify the practical steps to take to move towards the desired future state; defining timelines and landmarks; short, medium and long-term deliverables; tactical and strategic solutions. You will also be encouraged to recognise touchpoints and interdependencies with other departmental initiatives (both large and small).

• Always looking for consistency and alliances across tax regimes, as part of our dynamic team you will help drive forward the required improvements to payment systems and processes to deliver a trusted modern tax and customs administration.

• You may be required to lead and manage a small team. This might be on a remote basis.

• Both learn and share knowledge in projects and change initiatives being delivered by other parts of the department that impact payment processes.

This is a strategic and ambiguous environment where drawing upon skills such as responsiveness and prioritising will be key.

What are we looking for:

The successful applicant will be strategic and creative in their thought process with an ability to tackle issues and problems using their own initiative, to arrive at either workable solutions or providing evidence-based options for consideration.

Our Team is geographically dispersed and so you may be remote or matrix-managed and may need to manage in the same way. Maximising the use of digital solutions will be the best ways of team working.

Working largely without direction; able to identify suitable areas to research but also recognising when a topic is not worth further pursuit. As such this role is suitable for a highly motivated independent self-starter able to work at pace.

You need to have excellent communication skills and be adept at explaining complex issues and concepts, in a simple and clear manner, to a non-technical audience. Ideally with experience of presenting information in a compelling way – verbally, visually and in writing.

You should be confident and self-assured, able to build effective relationships/networks with colleagues at all levels across the Dept and beyond. You will need to break down barriers to understand how their work relates to the wider payment picture and influence how we can work together to deliver improvements.

You will be expected to work with colleagues and craft innovative approaches with a clear vision of the future for payments. Therefore, you should be able to demonstrate the ability to identify, surface and resolve challenges, uncertainties and misunderstandings in a constructive and collaborative way .

Essential criteria

1. Demonstrable understanding of how digital technology is changing user behaviour, and the challenges and opportunities for government payment services.

2. Experience of researching, compiling, analysing and interpreting information and data in various formats and turning this into clear findings that inform decisions.

3. Experience of drafting papers and preparing narratives for presentation to a range of senior audiences.

4. Proven track record of providing evidence-based options for consideration including accepting and handling challenges to your conclusions/recommendations. Benefits • Learning and development tailored to your role

• An environment with flexible working options

• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity

• A Civil Service pension