Senior Civil Servant (SCS) Personal Assistant

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.
The Operational Delivery Profession (ODP) is the largest profession in the Civil Service. ODP’s 200,000+ members work in a wide range of operational delivery roles across government, providing essential services that support and protect UK citizens at home and overseas. They help to make ONS a great place to work.
As a member, ODP supports you by providing learning and development opportunities, career pathways, tools and resources to help develop your skills and progress your career. This is an exciting opportunity to join a modern, innovative and inclusive Civil Service profession that sits at the heart of public service delivery., Embedded within a directorate business support team, you will work within a broader Directorate Support function, and you will need to work collaboratively with colleagues from a range of functions to deliver high quality support to the Director / Deputy Director(s) ensuring they are able to meet their key objectives.
The role operates in a fast-paced, pressurised environment and it is key that the successful candidate is comfortable working directly with senior leaders, is able to prioritise effectively, plan ahead and develop good working relationships with a broad range of stakeholders.
There will be an opportunity to work collaboratively and innovatively with other PA and business support colleagues across ONS to develop and share best practice, solve operational issues, and improve processes., + Taking the lead as the Director’s first point of contact, providing comprehensive and proactive inbox(es) management, to include:
o rationalising and filtering email traffic,
o responding to requests as appropriate,
o escalating issues,
o prioritising work,
o cascading information.
+ Proactively and reactively managing the Director's diary, ensuring efficient use of their time, managing changes and conflicts (including delegating to their senior leadership team as appropriate), working collaboratively across the organisation negotiating with others as necessary to achieve this.
+ Providing the Director with all necessary documentation ahead of meetings.
+ Facilitating effective communication between the Director, their senior team, and other stakeholders, both internal and external, as required.
+ Working with the business support team, organise and manage the logistics of business meetings, conferences and away days, ensuring that meeting papers are complete and distributed in a timely fashion, as necessary.
+ Arranging travel and accommodation in line with ONS policies for the Director, and submission of travel expenses on their behalf.
+ Other ad-hoc administrative tasks as required, which may include covering for other PA absences within the wider Directorate as required.
+ Providing other business support to the wider team as necessary, including undertaking short self-contained assignments as required, We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
+ Delivering at Pace
+ Working Together
+ Communicating and Influencing, 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., 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.
Security Clearance
The requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for 3 consecutive years immediately prior to applying.
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 read the information available on Gov.uk on this link, or 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
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 (and technical skills if applicable) 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.
The Sift will be conducted from 09/10/2024
Interviews will be conducted from 21/10/2024
For the full terms and conditions of the post, please see attachment.
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).

Are you confident when liaising with others, with effective communication skills? Are you a highly organised individual with excellent attention to detail? If so, we could have the role for you!, + Ability to communicate effectively, both in verbal and in written format, and comfortable liaising with people at all levels across the organisation
+ Highly organised with the ability to work well under pressure to ensure deadlines are met, and that information can be quickly and easily located and understood.
+ Ability to prioritise your work, managing competing demands and priorities efficiently.
+ Ability to flex personal working style to meet the needs of the Director / Deputy Director(s)
+ Excellent attention to detail, producing high quality work.

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.