Assistant Private Secretary and Business Support

Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne Part time What are my Responsibilities? You will need to be adaptable, resilient, and ready to undertake a diverse range of tasks ensuring the smooth running of the Directors Private Office, enabling the Director to lead and manage the Directorates business effectively throughout the year. Successful candidates can expect to be involved in a range of the following activities:

• Managing the Directors Inbox.
• Processing expenses, completing Transparency Data returns.
• Scrutinise and interpret information, using judgement to determine what the Director needs to action, requesting updates/ from key stakeholders to ensure information/updates are accurate and concise.
• Ensure preparations of the weekly/day pack (one note schedule, papers, agendas are prepared) Including commission work and advice and readouts to enable timely decisions to be taken to understand briefing, for example programme boards, departmental priorities, etc.
• Diary oversight arrange meetings/rooms/travel, diaries will be open, so minimal oversight required to ensure there are no clashes and the diary is balanced. Ensure all meetings are covered by empowered deputies when director cannot attend.
• Maintaining Finance Directorates administration including Organisation Charts and Business Continuity Plans, SharePoint, annual leave tracker- ensuring leave is transferred into Directors Diary.
• Maintaining oversight of strategic events/communications across the Directorate and DWP to ensure key messages and mandatory compliance completion are aligned communicated in a timely manner to our colleagues.
• Organise and effectively facilitate the All-Colleague Call.
• Support/Contingency cover in coordinating monthly/quarterly central returns for PC&P, Finance group.
• Work with the head of office to ensure effective cover within the team, so that there is never a break in service.
The role will require some line management, depending on the size of the Deputy Directors, Diary Manager pool., We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together
• Delivering at Pace, The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. Applications will be screened and if evidence of plagiarism or copying examples/answers from other sources is found, your application will be withdrawn. Internal DWP candidates may also face disciplinary action.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment. Security Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks. Nationality 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
  
  A team player who can work collaboratively within a small team and understand the need for transparency and effective communication., The successful candidate will have to demonstrate:
• Considerable experience of a fast-paced office at Director level.
• Experience with workforce planning and the job role catalogue, knowledge of recruitment processes within finance group.
• Recent experience with managing risks for Payments, Data or Financial control or Managing risk, issues and dependencies qualification.
• Excellent written and engagement skills and be highly competent at engaging professionally with stakeholders at all levels with a strong ability to persuade and influence.
• Excellent interpersonal skills with an ability to communicate confidently with senior leaders across the department.
• Ability to work proactively and efficiently, and to thrive in a challenging environment and prioritising own workload ability to meet deadlines.
• Strong organisation skills and ability to forward plan - a good working knowledge Proficiency in SharePoint, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Ability to adapt to various tasks, manage multiple items and have a pro-active approach to complete tasks.
Full-time role due to the nature of role and limited cover.

Alongside your salary of 37,497, Department for Work and Pensions contributes 10,862 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides. DWP have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes:
• Although this is a full time only role due to the nature of the work, in some other Civil Service roles, working patterns to support work/life balance such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours may be available.
• Generous annual leave at least 23 days on entry, increasing up to 30 days over time (prorata for part time employees), plus 9 days public and privilege leave.
• Support for financial wellbeing, including interest-free season ticket loans for travel, a cycle to work scheme and an employee discount scheme.
• Health and wellbeing support including our Employee Assistance Programme for specialist advice and counselling and the opportunity to join HASSRA a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly).
• Family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and shared parental leave pay after 1 years continuous service.
• Funded learning and development to support progress in your role and career. This includes industry recognised qualifications and accreditations, coaching, mentoring and talent development programmes.
• An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join professional and interpersonal networks including Womens Network, National Race Network, National Disability Network (THRIVE) and many more.
Things you need to know Selection process details This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window) , and will assess your Behaviours and Experience. Sift stage: As part of the application process, you will be asked to complete a Personal Statement of no more than 1000 words. The sift panel will use your Personal Statement to assess your skills and experience against the essential criteria listed for this position. Interview stage: If you have been successful in sift stage, you will be invited to an online interview via Teams. You will need to produce evidence of ID at the video interview. In the interview you will be assessed against the behaviours outlined in the job advert.