PA / Business Support Officer

As a PA/Business Support Officer you’ll be at the heart of our mission, supporting the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government analytical community.
As a resilient problem-solver with innate curiosity, you’re adaptable with an ability to plan and prioritise your workload and you’ll enjoy embracing challenges to support our mission.
You’ll be comfortable communicating with people at all levels of the organisation, anticipating their needs and using your natural curiosity to look for efficiencies to help you, and your team, work better. Whatever your background, you’ll be adaptable, motivated, collaborative and enjoy working at pace., As a member of a PA/Business Support Team you will provide the full range of executive personal assistant, administrative and secretarial support to several deputy directors and the director, including ensuring an appropriate balance of support is provided.
1. Using the full Office 365 suite, namely Outlook, Teams, PowerPoint and Word you will take the lead on diary management, email management, meeting arrangements and the management of small events.
2.Maintaining electronic office filing systems and ensuring that processes and procedures are adhered to are significant aspects of this role.
3.Producing action notes or a record of meetings as requested by the Senior Leadership Team and communicating outcomes, ensuring that follow up actions are taken are also essential to this role.
4. The post holder must act appropriately and independently with an understanding of confidentiality because tasks involve a wide range of internal and external stakeholders.
5.The post holder must be able to communicate effectively and build good personal relationships through building a reputation for producing high quality work.
6. Working as part of a team to ensure effective delivery of work including cross cover support are necessary for this role
The post involves travel to Offices in Wolverhampton, Darlington and London. This could be up to twice a month, travel costs will be paid.

Person specification
1. Provide PA and general business support to the Senior Leadership Team.
2. Communicate and engage effectively with a range of people, including internal and external staff and stakeholders. This will include dealing with stakeholder enquiries promptly and courteously referring to the relevant lead where appropriate.
3. Responsible for the organisation of meetings and events and production of reports, papers, minutes and updating action logs as required. This will include providing secretariat support to internal meetings and networks as required.
4.Support the development of systems and procedures where necessary to ensure efficiency, quality and cost effectiveness across the business support and administration function.
5. Participate in relevant internal working groups/projects, services and initiatives across the organisation representing the Team or Region.
6. Carry out timely and accurate information analysis and reporting on agreed areas of their working area and present findings in an agreed manner. This will include developing and maintaining databases as required by the job using a variety of digital and IT applications.
7. Contribute to effective information management and assist with the dissemination and/or collation of information/returns, in a timely manner.
8. Responsible for organising and controlling own workload ensuring deadlines are observed and duties performed efficiently and provide cover as directed by line manager for other members of the team in their absence., As part of our pre-employment checking process we will be using your CV to confirm your job history. Please note that by providing us with your CV you are consenting to us using the information enclosed as part of the checking process.
Our application system is designed to remove as much bias as possible from the recruitment system – this means that a hiring manager does not know your name, your details, see your whole application in one go (or have your CV at review stage unless stated otherwise).
At application stage you will be asked to upload a CV document. Unless stated otherwise in the advert, your CV will not form part of the assessment but will be used for information purposes and only shared with the panel at interview stage.
Your answers are randomised and chunked up. This means that each assessor views sets of responses to questions, for example all candidates’ responses to ‘Seeing the Big Picture’ rather than seeing a candidate’s full application. The science behind this is that recruitment can be subject to ordering and fatigue effects and we want to reduce this as much as possible.
Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that each of your answers would be viewed by different assessors.
When writing your application, remember:
+ The assessor won’t be reading your answers sequentially.
+ Do not assume that the same assessors will have read all of your answers.
+ If talking about something in your first answer, make sure that you write the second answer as if you had not written the first (and so on!), In the event that we receive a large number of applications, we may conduct an initial sift using the lead behaviour listed in the advert. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment/interview.
The interview will be of a blended nature consisting of the following success profiles elements:
Behaviour – Seeing The Big Picture, Communicating and Influencing, Delivering at Pace, Making Effective Decisions
Experience
Technical
Strength - The strength based questions will require natural responses from the candidates.
If invited to interview candidates will be expected to complete an exercise testing their diary management skills, details of this will be sent over prior to interview., There may be opportunities for candidates to work flexibly depending on the business needs. This will be discussed with the vacancy manager on a case-by-case basis if you are successful for the role.

• Please note: The Darlington Economic Campus (DEC) is a pioneering new cross-government hub which will bring together people across departments and public organisations to play an active role in the most important economic issues of the day. The work of the Campus will make a real difference to people both across the UK and internationally. There will be substantial career opportunities and exciting prospects - a career at the Campus means you will be working at the heart of Government, with access to the benefits and fantastic opportunities offered by the civil service.

For further information on the DEC, please take a look at the attached DEC candidate pack.
Sift and interview dates:
Sifting is envisaged to take place W/C 30/09/24 with interview dates to be confirmed. All interviews are currently being held remotely via videocall.
Reserve List
In the event that we identify more appointable candidates than we currently have posts available, we will hold applicant details in a reserve list for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. This may include roles at a lower grade. Candidates placed on a reserve list will be informed of this. Those candidates who do not wish to remain on the reserve list should contact recruitment@communities.gov.uk to be removed from the reserve list.
CTC (Counter-terrorism Clearance):
Important note
Successful candidates for roles based in our 2 Marsham Street building must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check and the process can take up to 8 weeks to complete.
Please note that successful candidates will need to pass the CTC security checks – this requires you to have been resident in the UK for the past 3 years. Please refer to the MHCLG Notes on Security Clearance section of our Candidate Pack for further information on Counter Terrorism Clearance (CTC). Thank you.
Candidates should also note that with effect from 1st August 2018 the department will also check all applicants who are successful at interview, against the Internal Fraud Database (IFD) held by the Cabinet Office. In accordance with the Civil Service Internal Fraud Policy, any applicant who is included on the IFD will be refused employment by MHCLG. Please see the Candidate Pack for further information on the Internal Fraud Database.
Candidate Pack Information
Please see attached Candidate pack for further information.
Before starting your application it’s very important to make sure that you are eligible to apply and meet the Civil Service nationality requirements. All candidates are expected to read the information provided in the MHCLG candidate pack regarding nationality requirements and rules
Internal Fraud Database
The Internal Fraud function of the Fraud, Error, Debt and Grants Function at the Cabinet Office processes details of civil servants who have been dismissed for committing internal fraud, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned. The Cabinet Office receives the details from participating government organisations of civil servants who have been dismissed, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned, for internal fraud. In instances such as this, civil servants are then banned for 5 years from further employment in the civil service. The Cabinet Office then processes this data and discloses a limited dataset back to MHCLG as a participating government organisations. MHCLG then carry out the pre employment checks so as to detect instances where known fraudsters are attempting to reapply for roles in the civil service. In this way, the policy is ensured and the repetition of internal fraud is prevented.
For more information please see - Internal Fraud Register
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 counter-terrorist 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).

Behaviour 1 (lead behaviour) Delivering at Pace: Describe how you have managed multiple PA and Business Support activities with simultaneous deadlines.
Behaviour 2 Communicating and influencing: Explain how you managed a complex business support problem to deliver a positive outcome for the organisation.
Behaviour 3 Seeing the bigger picture: What do you prioritise when delivering excellent PA support?
Experience: Describe your most significant work related achievement.

Alongside your salary of £26,464, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government contributes £7,666 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
+ Learning and development tailored to your role
+ An environment with flexible working options
+ A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
+ A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%, In the full campaign we will test the below Success Profile Elements:
Behaviours: Seeing The Big Picture, Communicating and Influencing, Delivering at Pace, Making Effective Decisions
Experience: Yes
Technical: Yes
Strengths: Yes
We do not consider direct CV applications to our Recruitment mailbox – you must apply for this role via the application link on Civil Service Jobs
Please note that near miss offers may be made at the lower grade to candidates who do not meet the grade criteria for this campaign.
EO salary
+ The salary for this role is £29,691 (London) or £26,464 (National)., Any move to MHCLG from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk