Head of Human Resources

We are currently seeking applications for a Head of Human Resources within Food Standards Scotland based in Aberdeen or other locations across Scotland subject to negotiation. This is a permanent and pensionable appointment and new entrants will normally start on the minimum of the pay range. Candidates with a disability who meet the essential criteria below will be invited to the assessments.

The successful candidate will join the Governance and Infrastructure Division within Food Standards Scotland (FSS) which provides a range of services to support the organisation of approximately 300 plus employees to deliver its statutory obligations and strategic goals. These services include, HR, Finance Programme Management Office, Business Performance Reporting, IT, Records and Information Management, Facilities Management, Health and Safety and Administrative support. Most of the Governance and Infrastructure work relates to the strategic outcome of FSS being efficient and effective.

Qualifications Required
CIPD level 7 is required.

Other qualifications equivalent to these may also be acceptable, if you are in any doubt please contact to discuss.

Please note: If you fail to demonstrate how you meet the minimum qualifications as stated above, your application will be automatically sifted out.

Essential Criteria
1. Effective track record of working in a strategic HR business partner role and evidence of working with executive leadership teams to support organisational delivery, change and growth.
2. Ability to build relationships and credibility quickly, experience shaping and driving approaches to leading and developing people.
3. Demonstrable ability to think creatively and to bring people solutions to life.
4. Proven people management and leadership experience.

Nationality requirements
This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UKs
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals from the EU, EEA or Switzerland with settled or pre-settled status or who apply for either status by the deadline of the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals working in the Civil Service
• relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals who have built up the right to work in the Civil Service
• certain family members of the relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals

Further Information

For further information on this vacancy please download and review the “Person Specification and Further Information for Job Applicants” which you will find below. To apply, you must fully complete and submit an online application via this website before the closing date as well as a CV (no longer than two pages) setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements.

Add to your CV your personal statement (no longer than 700 words) explaining why you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience suitable for this role, with particular reference to the criteria in the person specification.

These must be combined into one document as the system can only accept a single document upload per application. Failure to submit a single combined document (CV and personal statement) will mean the panel only have limited information on which to assess your application against the criteria in the person specification.

When considering how your experience relates to the role, please tailor your CV and personal statement to reflect the role and the essential skills/criteria as described in the job description/person specification.

To learn more about this opportunity, please contact Rachel Polley at Rachael.Polley@fss.scot.

Important Information Regarding Interviews
In recognition of the Scottish Government’s ongoing measures and guidance in its response to Covid-19 (Coronavirus), we would like to advise applicants that a decision has been taken that all interviews must be conducted in a virtual/remote setting.

In order to facilitate this new way of working, we are asking all applicants to ensure that they have a suitable space to complete the virtual interview. In addition, a personal device of choice, which has the interview application downloaded. This could be MS Teams or Webex for example. This will allow candidates to undertake the interview/assessment if selected. We are also asking you to ensure that your personal Wi-Fi/Broadband capacity will be sufficient to carry both audio and video feeds.

The Scottish Government is a diverse and inclusive workplace and we want to help you demonstrate your full potential whatever type of assessment is used. If you require any adjustments to our recruitment process, please let us know via recruitment@gov.scot