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Director of Insight, AI and Innovation

  • Temporary
  • Closing on: Feb 14 2025
  • Competitive Day Rates

Enterprise Transformation Group has overall accountability for ensuring HMRC delivers on its corporate strategic and ministerial priorities. It does this through a remit to own and lead the creation of a single transformation plan for HMRC. It has an accountability to lead the way HMRC designs and how it is organised (HMRC Operating model) to land the change in the transformation plan ensuring HMRC corporate strategy and ministerial priorities become a reality.

Ensuring transformation is data and insight led and capitalises on emerging innovation is crucial to delivering on the department’s key priorities and can empower the business to thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape, making them future-ready and resilient. Embracing Artificial Intelligence (AI) also gives the department a competitive edge in the wider industry.


Director of Insight, Ai and Innovation at HMRC will hold a strategic position, leveraging organisational insights, fostering a culture of innovation and driving the adoption of AI. This role is essential for bringing together current thinking within the department on how Insight and Innovation (including EmTech and AI) can further support government priorities, shaping HMRC’s future, optimising tax systems, and maintaining public trust.

The successful candidate will play a critical role in HMRC’s transformation journey, ensuring our material change is insight driven and by championing AI, fostering innovation, and ensuring responsible practices. The role holder will be a leader who will shape the future of tax administration and public trust.

We are seeking a leader with deep technical expertise as well as strategic business acumen to work within a disruptive and ambiguous landscape to drive the strategic direction of innovation for HMRC. The Director of Insight, Ai and Innovation will design HMRC’s use of innovation and emerging technologies, including AI and Gen AI, identifying and collaborating with colleagues and subject matter experts to ensure the design, development and implementation of such technologies meets the needs of the Department and broader Government in a responsible and trustworthy manner where risks are carefully considered and mitigated.

The successful candidate must be a confident, inspiring and engaging leader who is comfortable and confident working in an environment where there is a high degree of ambiguity.

This role will lead an evolving directorate; the post holder will inform the design of the directorate, evaluate and test initial design decisions and drive continuous improvement.


Responsibilities

Senior Responsible Officer for Insights, Ai and Innovation:

  • Providing clear and timely advice to the department, Ministers, Reform and Modernisation Committee and the public on AI matters.
  • Manages a small team directly and collaborates with cross-functional teams across the organisation.
  • Creating awareness of HMRC’s Innovation vision across the organisation.

Strategy and vision:

  • Developing and driving the relevant strategies (Insight, Ai, Innovation) to define how the department will use these capabilities for enterprise-wide transformation.
  • Setting a vision for AI as a foundational technology, leveraging tech and data capabilities to drive growth.
  • Defining key performance indicators (KPIs).

Horizon scanning and foresight

  • Leading innovation capability (innovation squads, sandbox, R&D lab) to explore opportunities and applications for technological advancement.
  • Evaluating emerging AI technologies and assessing their potential impact on HMRC.
  • Considering workforce, policy, platform, and people alongside AI innovation.

Governance:

  • Design and lead the Enterprise AI Board, with delegated authority from ExCom, to make strategic decisions on applications of AI across HMRC.
  • Managing and monitoring the overall innovation portfolio including associated funding and risks.
  • Influencing and developing investment bids, allocating resources to high priority and high value innovation projects and AI use cases.

Stakeholder engagement:

  • Building partnerships with key stakeholders across HMRC and the wider government including HMRC ExCom and wider SLT, gov Digital Group, DSIT, Cabinet Office and HM Treasury.
  • Engaging across government to develop cross-government approach to AI, supporting the creation of strategic AI framework.
  • Establishing and maintaining strategic partnerships with external stakeholders including industry experts, academic institutions and research organisations.
  • Leading and instilling departmental discipline in external and supplier engagement.

Ethics and compliance:

  • Developing and ensuring compliance with departmental policies and guardrails for AI and EmTech applications.
  • Ensuring compliance with wider ethical norms and regulatory requirements in the rapidly evolving tech landscape
  • Leading the enterprise controls environment, managing and mitigating risks specific to AI in line with HMRC’s risk appetite.
  • Developing and adapting innovation and AI strategies to evolving regulatory demands in the wider tech landscape.

Essential Criteria

  • Deep understating of the innovation process as well as substantial experience in emerging technologies and AI.
  • Should be seen as a subject matter expert who owns their own development to keep abreast of pace of development within the field.
  • Strong strategic leadership and business acumen to leverage insight and innovation for strategic outcomes.
  • Project delivery experience in a fast moving, highly political and ambiguous environment with the ability to manage complexity and organisational issues to deliver results and shape the operating environment for their teams to be successful.
  • Strong stakeholder management capability, engaging with and adapting to different stakeholders with confidence and clarity.
  • Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to persuade and influence others at all levels of the organisation and wider government.
  • Strong interdependent partnering skills.
  • Experience of delivering within iterative test and learn environments and a track record of innovating


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