Job Description
Temporary Public Sector Senior Administration Role suitable for someone with a financial background and looking for or has leadership experience.
Temporary contract till the middle of September 2026, or for 12 months from start date
£17.39/hr - 37hrs/week
Brook Street are currently recruiting for a Compliance Team member, Higher Executive Officer level, to work for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, DEFRA, based in either Peterborough, Newcastle Upon Tyne or Reading.
Full-time role working 37 hours per week, Monday-Friday, 9 - 5, can be flexible to a certain degree.
Office based for the training, then moving on to 3 days a week in the office. This could increase, as required, for further training or if the business needs dictates.
Possible travel between sites on a few occasions.
No parking on any of the sites.
Location- Lancaster House, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Quay House, Peterborough or Northgate House, Reading
Rate of pay £17.39/hr
Temporary contract till mid-September 2026
About The Role:
This role sits in the Financial Compliance Team delivering compliance activities across a number of entities within the Defra Group. This includes Single Operating Platform (SOP) expense claims, Government Procurement Card (GPC) expenditure, as well as against key government framework contracts including train spend and temporary staff costs. Ensuring compliance with internal and external policies eg HMRC tax rules and reporting and HM Treasury's (HMT) Managing Public Money (MPM). It enables identification of cases of potential fraud, error, reputational damage and risk to the business, including risk management of transaction data published under the Government's transparency agenda.
This role is to support the existing financial compliance team as backfill, to allow multiple team members to undertake process owner and subject matter expert roles across several synergy works streams for Source to Pay, GPC and Expenses. The backfill will ensure business as usual services across the group, as well as supporting the Finance P2P priority project for synergy enablement.
Main responsibilities will include but not be limited to:
- Contributing to and implementing compliance activity, focusing on financial compliance, detecting fraud and error as well as managing business risk.
1. Providing support and guidance on policy and system processes
2. Running ad hoc reports requested by the wider business to support HR investigations
3. Freedom of Information requests and Management Information reporting
4. Data management to support use of audit tool
5. Quarterly Fraud and Error reporting on behalf of Environment Agency and Defra
6. Supporting Transparency reporting on Government Procurement Card spend over £500 and invoiced spend over £25k
7. Managing Invoices on Hold, providing advice and guidance to requisitioners to resolve Invoices on Hold queries.
8. Review negative balances on account
9. Manage inactive cardholder process for Environment Agency and Defra RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) file management for Environment Agency, Defra and Rural Payments Agency, and Covert Card programme
10. Supplier set-up approvals
11. Liaising as required with employees and subject matter experts to investigate and resolve queries
12. Provide guidance and instruction to the business area and/or individuals, including Travel and Subsistence (T&S) claims as well as other business expenses
13. Managing overpayments and seeking reimbursement
14. Ensure the consistent and fair application of the departmental policies within the team's remit
15. Respond to queries from Core Defra staff in relation to the travel and subsistence policy and the government procurement card policy
16. Identify and report suspicious transactions
17. Support staff to complete their expense claims or card reconciliations in an accurate and timely manner
18. Support the processing of new procurement card applications
19. Making changes to procurement card controls in line with the agreed policy
20. Supporting staff to raise requisitions to purchase goods or services
21. Providing advice to staff on our Purchase to Pay systems, processes and policies
22. Performing assurance checks on supplier maintenance forms
23. Support our housekeeping process on invoices, purchase orders, and suppliers
24. Under the government's transparency agenda, prepare various transparency data sets for first review and liaise with stakeholders and customers to resolve any queries and discrepancies, ready for publication on GOV.UK
25. Monitoring team mailboxes and allocate queries appropriately
Skills Required:
26. Ability to work flexibly and adapt to changing priorities to meet the current and future needs of the organisation
27. Ability to build, develop and maintain strong effective relationships with a wide range of stakeholders both internal and external
28. Collaborative relationships with a range of customers and teams
29. Ability to work confidently with information sharing and data, using a systematic approach to recording and storing on a shared system
30. Experience of training and supporting others on policies, procedures, practices and techniques equipping them with the knowledge and skills to deliver their work effectively
31. Experience of using a range of financial and reporting applications and other IT packages such as SharePoint and Oracle.
32. Experience of analysing a variety of data sets to inform decision making.
33. Be able to work independently and as part of a team
34. Effective time management, with experience of working to tight deadlines
35. Excellent written and verbal skills
36. Attention to detail and use own initiative
Full training will be given but you must have full working knowledge of Microsoft products, especially Excel.
Candidates applying must be able to pass a clear Basic DBS check and provide proof of Right to Work in the UK. You will also need to provide either reference details and/or evidence for education etc for the last 3 years.
The interviews will take place via Teams and you will be expected to demonstrate how your skills match those required and answer one or two competency-based questions, see behaviours below.
Behaviours
37. Seeing the Big Picture
38. Communicating and Influencing
39. Managing a Quality Service
40. Working Together
So, if you are looking for a glimpse into the world of the Public Sector, then this could be the opportunity for you.