Working in Partnership with The UK Border Agency & Home Office

Background

In line with the modernisation agenda, UK Borders Agency (UKBA) realised that they needed to develop their finance function in order to ensure that it was fit for purpose and could support all areas of the business to achieve their efficiency objectives. Previously a programme within the Home Office, UKBA had recently gained Executive Agency status and so the links between the two finance departments were strong, and as Home Office faced similar difficulties, they decided that they would work collaboratively.

Challenges

After winning a competitive tendering exercise, Morgan Hunt was tasked with designing and delivering a recruitment campaign that would attract and retain qualified finance professionals who possessed strong commercial acumen and had the ability to push through efficiency drives. Both organisations wanted to bring in people with fresh perspectives who could facilitate better ways of working. With this in mind, we needed to design a campaign that would reach beyond the traditional civil service pool, attracting applicants who may not have naturally considered these opportunities.

Furthermore, the volume of these roles combined with the fact that they were spread across seven departments in two organisations meant that we had to consider the requirements of a large number of stakeholders as well as ensuring that we had adequate resource to deliver the project on time.

These roles were business critical and as such the stakeholders were keen to have the incumbents in place as soon as possible. However, due to the sensitive nature of the work of both organisations, all candidates needed to have passed CTC security clearance prior to taking up their position which can often cause delays.

Solution

Stakeholder Engagement: In order to ensure that the requirements of all of the stakeholders were taken into consideration, we hosted a number of round table discussions to ensure that we truly understood the requirements of each and that these were incorporated into the project.

Media Strategy: We designed a print and online advertising strategy that incorporated the branding of both organisations. Crucially, through the copy we highlighted that both organisations were looking to attract people who could drive through change and promote efficiency.

Talent Pool: Although each position was deemed to be business critical, the departments were at different stages in approval process. We decided to adopt a talent pool approach whereby all applicants went through an initial assessment and those that were successful entered the talent pool. When specific vacancies were approved we were able to go to the talent pool and identified the strongest candidates for the specific opportunity quickly.

Results

Over a six month period, we recruited to all of the positions and the feedback from both UKBA and Home Office has been very positive.

“Morgan Hunt were recently selected to embark on a large recruitment campaign for the Home Office and UK Border Agency. Their professional approach to delivery and campaign management has resulted in us appointing over 10 new senior finance professionals across both organisations”
Jackie Robinson, Chief of Staff, Home Office Shared Services Directorate