Revenue Head of Personal Division 2026: Assistant Secretary guide

Personal Division is a large operational business inside Revenue. It has about 1,300 staff across 15 locations and serves a broad personal-tax case base. The Head has to improve service, increase voluntary compliance and lead targeted intervention where compliance breaks down.

The brief is digital, operational and human at the same time. That combination should govern the examples you choose.

What the new Head is expected to move

The role is charged with extending self-service and real-time reporting, designing non-compliance opportunities out of processes, and using digital change, including AI, to improve customer service and risk detection.

It also owns targeted compliance programmes, the use of Revenue’s Compliance Intervention Framework and prosecution where appropriate. Alongside that sits leadership of a dispersed workforce, resource prioritisation, governance, employee engagement and communication.

The Head contributes to Revenue’s senior governance forums and is accountable to the Revenue Board for divisional performance. Relationships with legislative and other operational divisions matter because policy, customer experience and enforcement affect one another.

The person criteria are wider than tax knowledge

Candidates need recent leadership and management at an appropriate senior level in a large, dynamic and complex organisation. The booklet asks for strategic direction, mobilisation of staff, modernisation, process improvement and risk management.

It wants someone who can challenge and collaborate with independent senior managers, deliver significant results in a demanding setting and lead high-volume customer contact during peaks. Up-to-date knowledge of modern tax and duty administrations is requested, together with strong stakeholder and staff engagement.

The successful candidate must also understand, or quickly acquire, Revenue strategy, public-service reform, operational customer service and business drivers affecting tax compliance.

Give the application an operating thread

A scattered set of impressive examples can still feel weak. A stronger application has a thread: you used evidence to identify a service or compliance problem, set a direction, mobilised people and technology, managed risk and measured the result.

Do not hide the difficult part. If a change affected customers or staff, show how you handled resistance and maintained service. If enforcement increased, explain proportionality and governance.

The principles in the publicjobs application process apply even at this level. The assessor needs your action and result, not the reputation of the organisation around you.

Selection methods remain partly open

The booklet says selection may include shortlisting, a preliminary interview, an online questionnaire, a case study, work sample, role play or media exercise. A competitive TLAC interview may include a presentation.

No aptitude-test type is confirmed. General wording about tests or questionnaires is not evidence of numerical, verbal or situational-judgement testing for this campaign.

Until instructions arrive, practise making an executive recommendation from a short brief. State the service consequence, compliance risk, people impact and measure of success. That preparation transfers across several possible formats.

Conditions and mobility

The post is located in Limerick, but the booklet notes periodic reviews of assignments at this level. The appointee may later serve in another Revenue division or location. The Assistant Secretary PPC scale is stated in the booklet.

Reading map

Pages 5 and 6 contain the responsibilities. Pages 7 and 8 describe the person and mobility. Page 10 covers the competency level. Pages 11 to 13 cover pay, application and selection.

PSP reviewed the official material on 14 August 2026. Check the live sources before submitting.