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Join to apply for the Head of Centralised Operations role at publicjobs
Job Title: Head of Centralised Operations
Employer: Department of Social Protection
County: Dublin
Closing Date: 3pm, Thursday, 24th July 2025
About the Employer:
The Department of Social Protection is the largest Department of State in the Irish Civil Service and one of the largest organisations in the State.
It plays the lead role in developing policy and advising government on social protection/welfare, social inclusion and labour market issues including employment services, pensions, and other income supports (including children, disability, jobseekers, illness, and caring) and activation policies. The Department supports its Minister and the Government in developing legislation to implement these polices and in engaging with the Oireachtas to progress this legislation, and, to account for policy outcomes and the efficacy of its service operations.
In addition to these policy responsibilities the Department has a very significant service mandate.
The Department, which employs over 7,300 staff in approximately 300 locations with an annual budget of €26 billion, processes in excess of four million customer service applications per annum, responds to approximately eight million calls and issues approximately 100 million payments to over two million customers. It is governed by a Management Board of 14 members, including the Secretary General.
Reflecting its broad remit the staff of the Department are drawn from a variety of backgrounds and comprise service personnel, operations professionals, employment services professionals, occupational medical experts, IT professionals, economists, statisticians and other social science professionals, finance and accounting professionals, as well as legal experts and logistics/facilities professionals.
The Department works closely with employers, social partners, civil society groups and other government departments and agencies in the development and delivery of these services. The Department also undertakes and sponsors a significant body of research including customer tracking research and econometric evaluations of its own services to inform policy and service design.
As part of its remit the Department is also entrusted to ensure that the significant levels of public funds for which it is responsible are disbursed properly. Accordingly, it also develops and implements expenditure control programmes through its inspectorate (including seconded Gardaí) and in collaboration with other civil authorities including An Garda, the Revenue Commissioners and the Criminal Assets Bureau. It also operates a professional medical assessment service heading by a Chief Medical Officer and a team of occupational health specialists.
About the Role:
The Department is now recruiting a senior leader at Assistant Secretary level, with responsibility for leading the operation and development of a number of key schemes and services.
The Department’s service operations functions are separated into those responsible for services delivered through its network of Intreo Centres and contracted service providers, and those delivered remotely using centralised offices. The latter include schemes delivering state pensions, caring and disability payments, family and children payments (including maternity, paternity, parental and child benefits) and illness-related payments (including the treatment benefit schemes covering dental and ophthalmic benefits).
Reporting to the Deputy Secretary General, the person appointed as Assistant Secretary with responsibility for Centralised Operations will lead a team of 6 Principals with over 1,600 staff based in large offices in Dublin, Longford, Sligo, Letterkenny and Buncrana. In addition to leading these staff teams to maintain a high level of service performance, a key challenge for the successful candidate will be the continued modernisation of service delivery including greater use of online and self-service channels, and the potential use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance service quality and efficiency.
The person appointed to this role will also have a key role to play, together with colleagues, in informing the development of Government policy for the services under their remit and the development and design of these services to give effect to this policy.
The post will be headquartered in Dublin, with an attendance in Dublin of at least two days per week. However, on other days, the person appointed can operate from any of the Department’s main regional offices. They will be expected to travel between the centralised office locations on a regular basis.
About You:
The person appointed will be expected to have recent senior experience leading a demanding and complex operations function including the implementation of change programmes with a high level of IT dependency. They should be a visible leader, able to demonstrate the ability to lead and empower senior managers to build and sustain high performance amongst their teams.
They should also be able to demonstrate a clear understanding, of the role of the social protection system in the supporting economic and social development together with a good working knowledge of welfare and employment services or the capability to quickly acquire this knowledge. The ability to communicate effectively and persuasively is particularly important. The person appointed should have the ability to work with a wide range of stakeholders including representatives of staff and client groups, to lead and communicate change programmes effectively, to be adaptable, and to anticipate and find solutions to any challenges that may arise. The person appointed will also be required to work effectively with the political system, to ensure the achievement of key Ministerial and Government priorities and to provide high quality advice. As a member of the of the Department’s Management Board the person appointed to the role will also be expected to contribute to the achievement of the wider corporate objectives set out in the Department’s Statement of Strategy and to the development of social welfare policy and service delivery. The person appointed will be expected to be a thought leader and advocate in respect of challenging accepted methods of working and adopting new technologies and service processes:
Ideally, the person appointed should have:
• proven experience and knowledge in the areas of responsibility;
• a clear understanding, or the capacity to quickly develop an understanding, of public administration and governance;
• a clear understanding, or the capacity to quickly develop an understanding, of the role of the social protection system in supporting economic and social development;
• an ability to develop and manage high performing teams;
• strong written and oral communication skills (the person appointed can expect to attend and contribute to senior officials groups, cabinet committees and Oireachtas committees);
• an ability to build effective relationships internally and with other organisations;
• the ability to anticipate and manage change in a complex, fast moving environment;
• the capacity to identify and deploy modern business methods and technology so as to ameliorate complexity, enhance service to customers and maximise the benefits to be achieved; and
• as a member of the Department’s management board, be capable of contributing to all aspects of the work of the Department at Assistant Secretary level
As a member of the Senior Public Service (SPS) the appointee will also be required to participate in, and contribute to, system wide public and civil service initiatives and programmes.
From time to time there may be a reassignment of Assistant Secretary responsibilities and the person appointed therefore should be able to demonstrate that they have or can acquire quickly the capacity to deal with all aspects of the work of the Service at Assistant Secretary level and as a member of the Senior Management Team to contribute actively to the overall leadership of the organisation. The appointee may also be assigned to manage service wide projects outside his/her area of responsibility.
The Closing Date for this competition is Thursday, 24th of July at 3pm.
We are committed to a policy of equal opportunity and encourage applications under all nine grounds of the Employment Equality Act.
Seniority level
* Seniority level
Executive
Employment type
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Full-time
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Management
* Industries
Government Administration
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