Head of Contingent and Implicit Liabilities

Do you have the necessary skills and expertise to lead a team responsible for overarching policy in HM Treasury on government's role as the insurer of last resort in the economy and managing the approval of major new contingent liabilities ? If so, we'd love to hear from you!

About the Team

The Balance Sheet Team leads work to improve analysis, policy, and risk management across trillions of pounds of assets and liabilities owned by government. It also leads on policy advice for new balance sheet interventions such as guarantees, loans and equity investments. This is an innovative area for fiscal policy and central to the Treasury's role as a finance and economics ministry. We draw on a diverse network, including international institutions, colleagues across Treasury and departments, utilising expertise from across the public sector.

The team (composed of 13 people) is split into four branches: Frameworks, Capital Assets and Metrics; Financial Assets and Investments; Contingent and Implicit Liabilities and Balance Sheet Management

The importance of our work has been underlined by an increasing focus on the balance sheet in fiscal policy and the growing use of balance sheet interventions, such as during the Covid-19 pandemic and energy price shock. Over the past year, the team have led work to support the decision by the Chancellor to target a broader measure of debt in the fiscal rules, developed a new framework for managing financial investments published at Budget, and have been part of various major policy decisions on issues varying from the financing of Sizewell C nuclear power station to the government's fiscal support for Ukraine. To better limit government's fiscal exposure to shocks in the future, the team is developing an ambitious new area of fiscal policy to manage government's implicit liabilities.

About the Job

In this role, you will be responsible for:

• Appraising new and novel schemes that incur contingent liabilities and managing the Treasury approval process for new contingent liabilities. This will involve developing a broad stakeholder network across the department and advising Ministers, policy leads and senior officials. Recent examples of new contingent liabilities the team have been involved in advising on include indemnities to support the UK's £22bn investment in Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage and guarantees to provide fiscal support to Ukraine.
• Developing a new policy approach to manage implicit liabilities across government, including advising the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on policy design and implementation. This will involve developing a broad understanding of the different areas that government provides implicit insurance, working with Treasury spending teams and departments to lead policy deep dives (e.g. on airline and travel insurance), and leading the publication of a new framework. The team's work here is world-leading in expanding the boundaries of fiscal management.
• Evolving government's overarching control of contingent liabilities, including considering potential top-down constraints on government's maximum fiscal exposure to risks and how we can increasingly manage government's stock of contingent liabilities as an overall portfolio. This will support Treasury ministers when considering whether to enter into new commitments (e.g. guarantee schemes to support infrastructure financing) or exit existing interventions.

About You

This is a developing area of work with significant reach across the Treasury's fiscal and economic policy responsibilities, so the post-holder will be able to have a substantial policy impact and shape the role to their interests.

You will have experience of working with economics principles and/or have experience of working on public spending issues. You are able to use evidence and analysis to come to a sound judgement on complex policy or analytical problems, particularly when faced with an uncertain context; build strong relationships across a range of internal and external stakeholders, collaborate effectively, and influence others to achieve outcomes and lead challenging pieces of work to tight deadlines and balance a mix of competing short- and long-term work priorities.

Some of the Benefits our people love!

• 25 days annual leave (rising to 30 after 5 years), plus 8 public holidays and the King's birthday (unless you have a legacy arrangement as an existing Civil Servant). Additionally, we operate flexitime systems, allowing employees to take up to an additional 2 days off each month
• Flexible working patterns (part-time, job-share, condensed hours)
• Generous parental and adoption leave packages
• Access to a generous Defined Benefit pension scheme with employer contributions of 28%
• Access to a cycle-to-work salary sacrifice scheme and season ticket advances
• A range of active staff networks, based around interests (e.g. analysts, music society, sports and social club) and diversity

For more information about the role and how to apply, please follow the apply link.

If you need any reasonable adjustments to take part in the selection process, please tell us about this in your online application form, or speak to the recruitment team at