A Senior Civil Service job in digital and data can vary depending on the context and challenges in your organisation.
Each contextual challenge has one of 4 levels reflecting how challenging it is: 1 being the most simple, and 4 being the most challenging.
You can use these contextual challenge levels to:
- identify the level of potential impact or challenge that a specific Senior Civil Service role has
- assess what job grade might be appropriate for a specific role
Not all contextual challenges are relevant for all digital and data roles.
Making digital and data decisions
Digital and data leaders are involved in decision making with different levels of impact.
| Level 1 | Decisions about services or technology strategy for a part of the organisation |
|---|---|
| Level 2 | Decisions about digital and data strategy for the whole organisation |
| Level 3 | Decisions about the overall strategy for the organisation |
| Level 4 | Decisions about strategy for the whole of government |
Protecting data
Digital and data leaders need to ensure data is appropriately protected based on the volume of data, type of data, and the impact of this data being compromised.
| Level 1 | Protect against compromise of data that could result in minor or temporary impact on individuals or organisations |
|---|---|
| Level 2 | Protect against compromise of data that could result in moderate impact to many individuals or organisations, or serious impact to a small number of them |
| Level 3 | Protect against compromise of data that could result in serious impact to some individuals or organisations, or significant impact to a large number of them |
| Level 4 | Protect against compromise of data that could result in threat to life, national security or critical national infrastructure, or critical impact on individuals and organisations on a national scale |
Protecting systems
Digital and data leaders are required to appropriately protect against different levels of impact caused by system failure or a system being compromised.
| Level 1 | Protect against system failure or compromise that could cause minor or temporary disruption at an organisational level or a non-critical national level |
|---|---|
| Level 2 | Protect against system failure or compromise that could cause significant disruption at an organisational level or a non-critical national level |
| Level 3 | Protect against failure or compromise across connected systems that could cause significant disruption or potential harm at a national level |
| Level 4 | Protect against failure or compromise of critical systems or critical national infrastructure that could cause widespread disruption at a national level or threats to national security |
Sharing data and systems
How widely technology and data is shared across different groups in your organisation can affect the challenges of your role.
| Level 1 | Sharing across part of an organisation |
|---|---|
| Level 2 | Sharing across a whole organisation |
| Level 3 | Sharing across a whole organisation and connected public bodies |
| Level 4 | Sharing across government and outside the public sector |
Enabling digital and data transformation
Digital transformation includes creating common platforms, shared technical and data infrastructure, governance, processes and ways of working.
| Level 1 | Transformation in some aspects of the organisation |
|---|---|
| Level 2 | Transformation in all aspects of the organisation |
| Level 3 | Transformation of all aspects of the organisation and connected public bodies |
| Level 4 | Transformation across government and outside the public sector |
Challenges at different sizes
The job of a digital and data leader can vary depending on their:
- organisation's size
- people responsibility
- budget responsibility
Each size comes with different challenges that affect what you need to do to be effective.
Organisation size
Small: up to 1000 people
Challenges:
- multitasking across several roles
- more exposure
Medium: up to 15,000 people
Challenges:
- more likely for priorities to change
- more fluid responsibilities
Large: up to 80,000 people or more
Challenges:
- broader focus or specialisation
- more hierarchy
People responsibility
Small: up to 50 people
Challenges:
- risk of getting too involved in specific problems
- learning to trust others to make decisions
Medium: up to 200 people
Challenges:
- risk of relying on a narrow set of relationships
- potential for people to ‘burnout’
Large: up to 500 people or more
Challenges:
- more distant from your people
- hard to know what is really going on
Budget responsibility
Small: up to £5 million
Challenges:
- more precarious
- dependent on others for money
Medium: up to £50 million
Challenges:
- difficult to adapt to changing budget priorities
- not enough budget to either bring in enough specialist skills or fully outsource
Large: up to £5 billion or more
Challenges:
- higher number of competing priorities
- higher risk