Details
Reference number
427525
Salary
£40,415 - £48,620
SEO - National: £40,415 - £44,480; London: £44,195 - £48,620 (pro rata for part-time working)
A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
GBP
Job grade
Senior Executive Officer
Contract type
Permanent
Business area
DSIT - Science, Innovation and Growth - Office for Life Sciences
Type of role
Administration / Corporate Support
Policy
Private Sector Development
Science
Secretarial
Working pattern
Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time
Number of jobs available
1
Contents
* Location
* About the job
* Benefits
* Things you need to know
* Apply and further information
Location
Birmingham, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh, London, Salford
About the job
Job summary
DSIT
At DSIT we're all about improving people's lives by maximising the potential of science & technology.
We accelerate innovation, investment and productivity through world-class science, research and development.
We use technology for good by ensuring new and existing technologies are safely developed and deployed across the UK, with the benefits more widely shared.
We are driving forward a modern digital government which gives citizens a more satisfying experience and their time back.
We do all this to enable the Government's 5 national missions: kickstarting economic growth, making Britain a clean energy superpower, taking back our streets, breaking down barriers to opportunity and building an NHS fit for the future.
Above all, we focus on improving people's lives. Whether it's researching new treatments for disease, developing better batteries, reducing burdens through better public services, keeping children safe online, and much more, outcomes for citizens are at the heart of what we do.
Our Inclusive Environment
We offer flexible working benefits, employee well-being support and a great pension. We are enormously proud to be a Disability Confident Leader employer. We support candidates with adjustments throughout our recruitment process. Information about disability confidence and just some examples of the adjustments that you can request can be found in the reasonable adjustment section below.
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 and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.
Find Out More
We regularly run events where you can find out more about the department and tips for the application and interview process. You can sign up for upcoming events here:
You can also follow our LinkedIn Page:
Job description
The Private Secretary role offers a great opportunity to support the Executive Chair for Office for Life Sciences (OLS), working as part of the Office for Life Sciences Private Office.
The Office for Life Sciences is a trilateral directorate between the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology and the Department for Business and Trade. Consisting of c. 120 staff, OLS is a high-performing unit advancing UK interests in a priority sector which generates turnover of over £80 billion/ year. Life Sciences is key to delivering the Government's ambitions on economic growth and building an NHS fit the future – the forthcoming Industrial Strategy will identify Life Sciences as one of the key growth sectors for the economy, whilst the innovation being developed by Life Sciences companies will enable people to lead healthier and more productive lives.
The Office for Life Sciences is the key interface between the Life Sciences sector and HMG – we work with industry and the NHS to ensure the UK has access to innovative healthcare and drive partnerships between industry, Government and the health system that supports inward investment. Our work has real-world impact, be that in securing partnership to deliver precision cancer immunotherapies to UK patients or securing investment in research and development to advance early disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment, monitoring, and developing breakthrough products and technologies for some of the UK's biggest healthcare challenges.
The Executive Chair is a new appointment, acting as an ambassador both domestically and internationally for the UK life sciences sector. He will work across government and the wider public sector to ensure engagement with industry around policy and investment happens productively and at pace, working closely with all three Secretaries of State, providing support and expert advice as required. They will rely on their Private Secretary to help them carry out their role and drive forward their priorities.
The role requires a highly motivated and adaptable individual who has the drive and capability to deliver high quality work to strict deadlines and manage demanding and often complex priorities, collaborating with a range of senior leaders and other Private Offices across the Civil Service and externally.
You will be required to display high levels of judgement often dealing with senior leaders on high profile and critical matters, frequently working closely with the Senior Leadership Team and their Personal Assistants to drive key deliverables and ensure alignment and consistency.
Given this is a newly created role, you need to be comfortable working in ambiguity and adaptable to change. There will also be an opportunity to help shape the role with the support of the G7 Head of Office.
The Private Secretary will use their strong communications and excellent organisation, prioritisation and interpersonal skills to support the Executive Chair in all aspects of his role.
Person specification
* Thrives working in a fast-paced, highly pressured environment with tight deadlines and changing priorities, taking responsibility for prioritising work to deliver results where no two days or weeks are the same.
* Confident communicator who can engage with a wide variety of people including senior leaders on the Executive Chair's behalf.
* Good eye for detail and delivers quality outputs.
* Ability to understand the bigger picture when commissioning briefings and delegating work.
* Comfortable working within a small private office team and building strong relationships within that team and across the Office for Life Sciences.
* Good organisational skills. Resourceful and resilient, in particular calm when working under pressure.
* Good working proficiency with Office 365 and how to manage SharePoint sites.
* Willingness to learn and develop self and others.
Key responsibilities:
As the Private Secretary you will be responsible for leading the day-to-day private office support for the very busy Executive Chair which incorporates (but is not limited to):
* Owning the inbox/systems that are put in place to manage the flow of information. Initial triage of all emails to determine appropriate responses (i.e. cascading readouts, commissioning, or taking forward actions on behalf of Executive Chair). Flagging high priority actions, and working with the Private Secretary for the Director of the Office for Life Sciences to delegate out as appropriate.
* Supporting the Executive Chair by maintaining strong oversight of key and emerging issues, including managing and tracking actions as required, while proactively understanding their priorities.
* Using initiative to see the bigger picture across the directorate to action emails, solve problems at pace, and prioritise work responsibilities.
* Draft email replies, being able to challenge assumptions and handle sensitive information appropriately and discreetly.
* Responsible for ensuring papers and reports are prepared and scheduled for review, ensuring colleagues across the directorate have correctly organised necessary papers and briefing for meetings.
* Direct line management responsibilities of the Diary Manager (shared with one of the Deputy Director teams).
* Working with the G7 Head of Private Office to maintain processes to ensure sustained ways of working across the private office and the wider directorate, and deputising for the Head of Office as required.
As a line manager, you will be responsible for working with your members of staff to define their objectives, as well as managing their development and performance.
Essential Criteria:
* Experience providing high-level support to a senior leader within a Private Office or executive assistant capacity.
* Evidence of working in a fast-paced, highly pressured environment with tight deadlines and changing priorities. The ability to prioritise and re-prioritise work using sound judgement to understand the risks. (Please ensure evidence and examples provided fully demonstrate this requirement).
* Exceptional organisational skills and attention to detail.
* Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, and the confidence to clearly communicate on the Executive Chair's behalf.
* Discretion and the ability to act with sensitivity and integrity as a trusted member of Private Office.
Desirable Criteria:
Previous experience of working in life sciences would be beneficial but is not essential.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
* Communicating and Influencing
* Making Effective Decisions
* Managing a Quality Service
* Seeing the Big Picture
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £40,415, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology contributes £11,708 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology offers a competitive mix of benefits including:
* A culture of flexible working, such as job sharing, homeworking and compressed hours.
* Automatic enrolment into the Civil Service Pension Scheme, with an employer contribution of 28.97%.
* A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 30.
* An extensive range of learning & professional development opportunities, which all staff are actively encouraged to pursue.
* Access to a range of retail, travel and lifestyle employee discounts.
Office attendance
The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home-based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period.
Things you need to know
Selection process details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.
As part of the application process, you will be asked to complete a personal statement, CV and behavioural statements.
Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.
Please use your personal statement (in no more than 250 words) to demonstrate why you are interested in this role and what experience you have of working in a similar environment.
Applications will be sifted on behavioural statements, CV and personal statement.
In the event of a large number of applicants, applications will be sifted on the personal statement.
Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment/interview.
The interview will consist of behaviour questions.
Sift and interview dates
Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Further Information
Reasonable Adjustment
We are proud to be a disability confident leader and we welcome applications from disabled candidates and candidates with long-term conditions.
Information about the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) and some examples of adjustments that we offer to disabled candidates and candidates with long-term health conditions during our recruitment process can be found in our DSIT Candidate Guidance. A DSIT Plain Text Version of the guidance is also available.
We encourage candidates to discuss their adjustment needs by emailing the job contact which can be found under the contact point for applicants section.
If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.
If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check may be carried out.
New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.
A location based reserve list of successful candidates will be kept for 12 months. Should another role become available within that period you may be offered this position.
Please note terms and conditions are attached. Please take time to read the document to determine how these may affect you.
Any move to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology 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; for further information visit the Childcare Choices website.
DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).
DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign.
DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.
In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service /Disclosure Scotland on your behalf.
However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing Pre- stating the job reference number in the subject heading.
For further information on the Disclosure Scotland confidential checking service telephone: the Disclosure Scotland Helpline on and ask to speak to the operations manager in confidence, or email
Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant's details held on the IFD will be refused employment.
A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5 year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.
For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the Demystifying Vetting website.
Feedback
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 .
See our vetting charter .
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)
* 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
Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code 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 .
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 and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy .
Apply and further information
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans initiative.
The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).
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 : Kate Thompson
* Email :
Recruitment team
* Email :
Further information
Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission's Recruitment Principles. If you feel that your application has not been treated in accordance with the recruitment principles, and wish to make a complaint, then you should contact in the first instance. If you are not satisfied with the response that you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages: Click here to visit Civil Service Commission/Complaints.