Business Support Officer

Do you have excellent communication and organisational skills? Have you got a good eye for detail? If so, this might be the role for you.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social and demographic topics. These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution, and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime and migration.
Working within the Directorate Support Unit, in the business support team, you will be responsible for delivering and managing a broad range of business support activities for the directorate and its senior leadership team, and for working collaboratively with colleagues in other enabling functions across the organisation., The purpose of the business support function is to facilitate the smooth, efficient running of the directorate, dealing with operational matters (organisational, administrative), working collaboratively with other enabling functions (Finance, HR, Communications, Programme Management, and Risk & Assurance), and providing effective, efficient business support to the director, senior leadership team (SLT) and colleagues across the directorate.
The roles will work collaboratively with colleagues within the DSU and across the organisation to support the Business Manager in delivering highly effective business support activities to the director, senior leadership team and wider directorate. How your work is spread across the directorate will depend on its size and structure, and the complexity of some of the key tasks.
There will be an opportunity to join business support communities of practice, working collaboratively with business support colleague across ONS to develop and share best practice, solve operational issues, and improve processes.
Responsibilities
+ Build and maintain excellent working relationships across the DSU and wider directorate, working collaboratively and flexibly to achieve organisational priorities.
+ Operating in a matrix management environment, undertake a broad range of business support activities under the guidance of a Business Support Manager, ensuring these are delivered within defined timescales and to agreed quality standards, including but not limited to: Corporate planning activities, Collating MI, Cascading key corporate and directorate information using appropriate media & cross-divisional functional support of key business activities as required.
+ Assist with the organisation of key divisional and directorate meetings, which add value, including preparing and circulating the agenda, undertaking a secretariat or other facilitator role where necessary, writing minutes and records of actions from the meeting / workshop, obtaining updates on previous action points and chasing outstanding papers.
+ Manage the team inbox(es) effectively, ensuring that emails are dealt with appropriately in a timely manner, drafting responses to queries as required, seeking advice and guidance from the Business Support Manager as necessary.
+ Where appropriate, carry out delivery tasks and/or support the delivery of small projects under the direction of the Business Support Manager, or other senior managers.
+ Support enabling function spoke teams that sit within the DG group and / or directorate, including but not limited to: Recruitment: supporting recruitment activity logistics by providing secretariat function for resource panels ensuring recruiting managers provide all relevant information ahead of the panel; setting up interviews, liaising with recruitment managers and spoke teams to ensure panel members’ availability; maintaining divisional/ directorate workforce plan entries accurately.
+ Coordinate divisional responses to central and (where applicable) programme financial commissions; raising requisitions and receipting purchase orders as necessary; review financial transaction issues (e.g gaps between values receipted and invoices), liaising with senior managers as required to resolve.
+ Other ad-hoc administrative tasks as required, which may include covering for PA absences within the directorate., We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
+ Working Together
+ Communicating and Influencing
+ Managing a Quality Service, At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a member of the Business Disability Forum and a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.
As part of our application process, you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process that you need. If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.
If you would like an accessible version of any of the attachments or recruitment documents below or linked to in this advert, please contact the recruitment team who will be happy to assist., A lack of UK residency in itself is not always a bar to security clearance but the Department will need to consider eligibility by exception on a case-by-case basis. You will be asked to provide information regarding your UK residency during your application, and failure to provide this will result in your application being rejected.
If you are unsure that you meet the eligibility above, please contact the recruitment email on the advert before applying to discuss, as failure to meet the residency requirements will result in your security clearance application being rejected and any offer of employment being withdrawn.
At the point of SC application you will need to provide or give access to the following evidence:
+ Departmental or company records (personnel files, staff reports, sick leave reports and security records)
+ UK criminal records covering both spent and unspent criminal records
+ Your credit and financial history with a credit reference agency
+ Security Services records
Applicants may utilise AI resources in their submissions; ensuring all information provided is factually accurate, truthful, and original, avoiding any form of plagiarism to maintain the authenticity and credibility of the application process.
Please note that all campaigns may be subject to withdrawal at any stage if the internal resource position changes.
Assessment at application stage will be based on your work history, skill and experience and personal statement. Your application should be tailored to demonstrate any skills, knowledge and experience that are relevant to the content of the role.
Your personal statement should be no longer than 1250 words. You should use this space fully to provide evidence for each essential criterion within the person specification. As the criteria are scored, we would recommend that you give clear examples for each including the impact of your actions and set them out using the STAR acronym (Situation, Task, Action, Result).
Success Profiles Behaviour examples are not required at this stage.
In cases where there is a high number of applications the sift pass mark may be adjusted and candidates will be invited to interview in merit order, i.e., those scoring the highest.
Should you be invited to interview you will be assessed against all the behaviours as outlined in the advert.
Interviews will be held via video conferencing.
A reserve list may be held for a period up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made.
Sift will take place – From 6th November 2024
Interviews will take place - 20th - 21st November 2024
Dates are subject to change
For the full terms and conditions of the post, please see attachment below.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).
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
Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion
The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

+ Good interpersonal skills, both written and verbal, with an ability to interact well with people across the organisation, including those more senior to you.
+ Ability to work under pressure and deliver to tight timescales, with a good attention to detail, responding effectively to changing priorities.
+ Ability to proactively work well as part of a team, taking responsibility for delivering agreed business objectives.
+ Ability to work independently with minimal supervision, across a range of tasks, seeking advice and guidance from managers as appropriate.
Desirable Criteria
+ Experience of Microsoft applications

The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our 5400 valued colleagues across the business.

Alongside your salary of £25,954, Office for National Statistics contributes £7,518 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.