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Role details

Government Property Agency - Non Executive Director

Application deadline 13 May 2024

Summary

• Organisation: Government Property Agency
• Sponsor department: Cabinet Office
• Location: Various
• Sectors: Business and Trade
• Skills: Business, Commercial, Major Projects, Retail
• Number of vacancies: 1
• Time commitment: 30 day(s) per annum
• Remuneration: £25000 per annum
• Length of term: 4 year term
• Application deadline: 11pm on 13 May 2024

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Timeline for this appointment

1. Opening date

   8 April 2024

2. Application deadline

   11pm on 13 May 2024

3. Sifting date

   15 May 2024

4. Interviews expected to end on

   14 June 2024

Timeline dates are only an estimate and can change

About the role

Introduction

The GPA is seeking a Non-Executive Director to join the Board. This is an exciting opportunity for an individual to support the GPA as it continues to deliver on its strategy to transform the way the government estate supports public service delivery.

Role description

We are looking for someone with experience and expertise in estate management and corporate landlord functions, that is able to provide knowledge of large multisite flexible or co-working office space, property technology and culture improvements. 

Person specification

Essential criteria

All candidates must demonstrate, in their CV and supporting letter, how they meet the following criteria, through their knowledge, attributes and skills.

Specifically, we are looking for:

• An outstanding record of achievement throughout their professional career, displaying strong personal credibility and strategic leadership across large and complex organisations.
• Meaningful experience of estate management, particularly commercial real estate.
• Commercial and business acumen that will make a substantive contribution to the Board’s business across a range of strategic and operational areas.
•  Excellent interpersonal and strategic stakeholder management skills coupled with the ability to work effectively as part of a highly experienced board.

Desirable criteria

•  Previous non-executive experience or substantial experience of working with Boards.
•  Wider experience in the property sector, and including any of the following: asset management, workplace services, facilities management, or development, including development appraisal and viability analysis.
• Financially literate from a commercial perspective
• Experience of working in or with government
• Experience of property technology and/or technology transformation across a business
• Experience of providing large multisite client-facing flexible or co-working office space, in the commercial, retail or hospitality sectors.

Application and selection process

How to apply

Please submit your full application by email to Recruitment@gpa.gov.uk. All applications will be acknowledged.

If you wish to apply for this position, please supply the following:

• A comprehensive CV setting out your career history, with responsibilities and achievements.
• A supporting statement (maximum two sides of A4) explaining your suitability for the role with reference to the specified criteria. The covering letter is an important part of your application and is as much how you will be assessed as your CV.
• Diversity Monitoring Form, Political Activity and Conflicts of Interest Form – This is attached to the advert, please download the form and submit it alongside your application. Your Diversity Monitoring Form will be stored separately from your application and will play no part in the selection process.

Overview of the application process

• Once the competition closes, the recruitment panel will assess the applications to select those demonstrating the best fit with the role by considering the evidence you have provided against the Essential Criteria in the Person Specification section. Failure to address any or all of these may affect your application.
• The recruitment panel will then have a further meeting to review these candidates alongside CVs and suitability in order to select the shortlist. At this stage they may choose to take into account the desirable criteria. Shortlisted candidates will be advised on the outcome as soon as possible thereafter.
• If you are shortlisted, you will be asked to attend a panel interview in order to have a more in-depth discussion of your previous experience and professional competence. This could be in relation to any of the criteria set out in the vacancy description, key responsibilities and accountabilities and person specification.
• Prior to interview, you may have the opportunity for informal conversations with key personnel in order to improve your understanding of the organisation. Full details of the assessment process will be made available to shortlisted candidates.

Advisory Assessment Panel (AAP)

• Pat Ritchie CBE, Chair, Government Property Agency
•  Robert Razzell (UKGI), Non-Executive Director of Government Property Agency
• Mark Chivers, Government Chief Property Officer, Cabinet Office
• Lesley-Ann Nash, Independent Panel Member (Non-Executive Director - Homes England)

Eligibility criteria

You cannot be considered for a public appointment if:

• You become bankrupt or make an arrangement with creditors.
• Your estate has been sequestrated in Scotland or you enter into a debt arrangement programme under Part 1 of the Debt Arrangement and Attachment (Scotland) Act 2002 (asp 17) as the debtor or have, under Scots law, granted a trust deed for creditors.
• You are disqualified from acting as a company director under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986.
• You have been convicted of a criminal offence, the conviction not being spent for the purposes of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (c. 53).
• You become subject to a debt relief order or a bankruptcy restrictions order.
• You fail to declare any conflict of interest.

Additional information for candidates

Equality and diversity

Public Appointees play an important role in public life in statutory offices. For this reason, it is of great importance that these boards reflect the diversity of the UK as a whole. We welcome applications from all candidates regardless of ethnicity, religion or belief, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability or gender identity.

We ask all applicants to public appointments to complete a diversity monitoring form. This is not provided to the recruitment panel and plays no role in the appointment decision. This will allow us to see if there are any unfair barriers to becoming a public appointee and whether there are any changes, we could make to encourage a more diverse field to apply.

Disability confident

Disability Confident is a voluntary scheme which replaced the Guaranteed Interview Scheme or Two Ticks Scheme that was widely used in Britain. Disability Confident supports the Government’s commitment to halve the employment gap between candidates who have disabilities and those who do not by encouraging employers to think about disability and to take positive action to improve how they attract, recruit and retain workers with disabilities.

As a Disability Confident employer, the GPA is committed to ensuring that candidates with disabilities are provided with the adjustments that they require as part of the recruitment process. We will also offer an interview to a fair and proportionate number of disabled applicants that meet the minimum criteria for the job - by minimum criteria you must be able to provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate relevant skills and experience for each of the selection criterion set out in the Role Specification section. This does not mean that all candidates who have a disability are entitled to an interview.

Reasonable adjustments

The aim of this commitment is to encourage positive action for candidates with disabilities, encouraging them to apply for positions in public life by offering them the assurance that, should they meet the minimum criteria as advertised for the position, they will be given the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, talent and abilities at the interview stage. It is important to note that if we receive a higher volume of applications that far exceeds the number of those expected then we may need to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered. This will include the number of interviews offered to Disability Confident candidates that meet the minimum criteria for the role.

If you need any reasonable adjustments to take part in the selection process, please tell us about this in your online application form.

Principles of public life

The Seven Principles of Public Life (also known as the Nolan Principles) apply to anyone who works as a public office-holder.

1. Selflessness

Holders of public office should act solely in terms of the public interest.

2. Integrity

Holders of public office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work. They should not act or take decisions in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends. They must declare and resolve any interests and relationships.

3. Objectivity

Holders of public office must act and take decisions impartially, fairly and on merit, using the best evidence and without discrimination or bias.

4. Accountability

Holders of public office are accountable to the public for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.

5. Openness

Holders of public office should act and take decisions in an open and transparent manner. Information should not be withheld from the public unless there are clear and lawful reasons for so doing.

6. Honesty

Holders of public office should be truthful.

7. Leadership

Holders of public office should exhibit these principles in their own behaviour and treat others with respect. They should actively promote and robustly support the principles and challenge poor behaviour wherever it occurs.

Management of outside interests and consideration of reputational issues

Members of the Government Property Agency will need to show political impartiality during their time on the Board and must declare any party-political activity they undertake in the period of their appointment.

Due to the nature of the Government Property Agency it is not appropriate for members of the Government Property Agency to occupy paid party-political posts or hold sensitive, senior or prominent positions in any political organisation. Nomination for election to political office, for example, the House of Commons, the Northern Ireland Assembly, Scottish Parliament, the European Parliament, is not considered compatible with membership of the Government Property Agency.

Subject to the above, Board members are free to engage in political activities, provided that they are conscious of their general responsibilities and standards for public life and exercise proper discretion. You are required to fill out a Political Activity Declaration as part of your application (please see How to Apply), which will be kept separate from your application and will only be seen by the selection panel prior to interview. However, it is appreciated that such activities may have given you relevant skills, including experience gained from committee work, collective decision-making, resolving conflict and public speaking. If, therefore, you have had such experience and you consider it relevant to your application for this post, you should include it separately in the main body of your application.

If you are successfully appointed to the post, details of your response to the Political Activity Declaration will be included in any announcement of your appointment.

How to complain

Please email Recruitment@gpa.gov.uk.

Contact details

For additional information or further question, please email Recruitment@gpa.gov.uk.

Attachments

• GPA NED - Candidate Pack

• Conflicts of interest and diversity monitoring form