HR Vetting & Right to Work Lead

Ofgem is Great Britain’s independent energy regulator. Our primary responsibility is to protect energy consumers, especially the most vulnerable, while at the same time working with government, industry and consumer groups to deliver a clean, more affordable and secure net-zero energy system at the lowest cost to consumers and drive economic growth.

Ofgem has a culture of inclusion that encourages, supports and celebrates the diverse voices and experiences of our colleagues. It fuels our innovation and helps ensure we can best represent the consumers and the communities we serve. Everyone is welcome - as an inclusive workplace, our employees are comfortable bringing their authentic selves to work.

Role Purpose

Ofgem is strengthening its workforce assurance and compliance capability as part of its wider organisational transformation, including the modernisation of HR systems and processes. As a regulator operating in a complex and highly scrutinised environment, ensuring that our workforce controls are robust, consistent and aligned to both legal and regulatory expectations is critical to maintaining trust, governance and operational integrity. We are looking for an experienced HR Vetting and Right to Work Lead to play a key role in shaping and embedding these controls across the organisation. This role will lead the development and continuous improvement of our approach to Right to Work checks, vetting processes and employment compliance, ensuring that they are not only legally compliant but also efficient, proportionate and aligned to the needs of a modern, data-led organisation. This is a critical role at the heart of Ofgem’s People and governance agenda, working across HR, hiring managers and wider government partners to ensure that vetting and Right to Work processes are consistently applied and supported by clear standards, guidance and assurance. The role will also play an important part in ensuring that these processes are effectively integrated into broader transformation initiatives, enabling a seamless and compliant candidate and employee experience. You will be responsible for ensuring that processes are transparent, auditable and resilient, supporting internal governance, audit requirements and external scrutiny. At the same time, you will help ensure that candidate and employee experience is not compromised, balancing compliance with accessibility and efficiency.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage the delivery of Right to Work checks and visa compliance, ensuring all processes meet UK immigration legislation and Home Office requirements.
• Oversee and administer visa and sponsorship activities, including supporting Skilled Worker visa processes, maintaining compliance records and liaising with relevant internal teams and external stakeholders.
• Manage and coordinate pre-employment vetting and background screening, ensuring checks are completed accurately, consistently and in line with organisational and government standards.
• Provide clear guidance and advice to hiring managers and HR colleagues on visa requirements, sponsorship obligations and vetting processes.
• Maintain accurate, compliant and auditable records in line with Home Office audit requirements and internal governance standards.
• Identify and manage risks relating to immigration compliance, sponsorship and vetting, escalating issues where appropriate.
• Support audits and compliance reviews, ensuring Ofgem meets its obligations as a sponsoring organisation.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of visa, sponsorship and vetting processes, ensuring they are efficient, consistent and aligned to organisational needs.
• Ensure all handling of employee and candidate information complies with data protection and confidentiality requirements.

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

When you press the ‘Apply now’ button, you will be asked to complete personal details (not seen by the sift panel), your career history and qualifications.

You will then be asked to provide a 1250 word ‘personal statement’ evidencing how you meet the essential and desirable skills and capabilities listed in the role profile. Please ensure you demonstrate clearly, within your supporting statement, how you meet each of the criteria listed in the role profile. In the event of receiving a large number of applications, an initial sift may take place on just the lead criteria indicated in the essential criteria.

The personal information we have collected from you will be shared with Cifas who will use it to prevent fraud, other unlawful or dishonest conduct, malpractice, and other seriously improper conduct. If any of these are detected, you could be refused certain services or employment. Your personal information will also be used to verify your identity. Further details of how your information will be used by us and Cifas, and your data protection rights, can be found by [https://www.cifas.org.uk/fpn].

At Ofgem, we expect our staff to carry out their roles with honesty, fairness and openness. They should follow the Civil Service code and be free from any influence or bias. We are committed to making sure interests are recognised, declared and managed appropriately so that we can fulfil our duties as an energy regulator. Our Conflicts of Interest policy outlines the types of interests Ofgem staff must declare before onboarding, and the rules they must follow throughout employment so that we can clearly demonstrate that our decisions are not influenced by private interests.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.