Business Support Officer

Contents

• Location
• About the job
• Benefits
• Things you need to know
• Apply and further information

ONS operates a flexible hybrid working model across the UK, with colleagues linked to one of our contractual locations in Newport, & Titchfield (Fareham) and working between office and remote throughout the week.

As part of the hybrid working arrangement there is a 40% minimum office attendance requirement. Attendance is typically at your contractual office, with occasional travel to alternative locations. Due to estates constraints, there are currently temporary exceptions to this for colleagues based at Darlington who are required to attend the office for a minimum of 20% of their work time

This post is available for eligible colleagues with greater flexibility on attendance (which includes those on Homeworking contracts) to apply. Candidates will need to discuss their current greater flexibilities with the Hiring Manager to agree an arrangement that meets the needs of the individual circumstances and on-going needs of the business. Please refer to the Strategic Resourcing Wiki pages for clarification on the eligibility criteria.

About the job

Job summary

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.

Job description

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.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• 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

Behaviours

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Working Together
• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service

Benefits

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.

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.

Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that the benefits pack attached (bottom of page) will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.

Inclusion & Accessibility

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.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : [email protected]
• Email : [email protected]

Recruitment team

• Email : [email protected]

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, in the first instance, you should contact [email protected]. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission

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