About the job

Job summary

About Government Internal Audit Agency

We are an executive agency of His Majesty’s Treasury (HM Treasury), established in April 2015 to improve the quality of internal audit provided to central government.

Most of the Agency’s people are professionally qualified internal auditors, accountants or investigators.

Many are also specialists in areas including counter fraud, project management, digital and commercial audit.

We lead both the Government Internal Audit Profession and the Government Internal Audit Function.

Our workforce brings with it a unique depth of experience gained in a wide range of government departments, related bodies and other sectors.

This enables us to offer a high-quality service based on cross-government insight and a strong understanding of our customers’ business.

In GIAA, we aim to be a great place to work and to ensure that we have the capability and capacity to make even more of a significant contribution to achieving A Brilliant Civil Service over the coming years.

Our initial focus was on becoming “a single audit practice”. We are now focused on taking GIAA to the next level so we can provide better insights and better outcomes for government.

Job description

The Government Internal Audit Agency (GIAA) delivers internal audit and risk assurance services to 15 of the UK’s central government departments and over 130 of their related arm’s length bodies. 

At GIAA we are inspired by innovation, we are forward looking, and we work together to embed new ideas, ways of working, and technologies to keep our thinking and work fresh, modern, and effective. 

We have recently been nominated as a top 5 winner in the Government Category for the 2023 Inspiring Workplaces Awards and for ‘Outstanding Team’ and ‘Inspirational Leader’ at the IIA Audit and Risk Awards. 

This is an exciting time to join the GIAA. The introduction of our Audit Response Team (ART), alongside our embedded customer-facing teams, means we can elevate our impact across UK central government by ensuring we are responsive and agile whilst also continuing to meet our customers’ needs. 

For our customer facing roles you will work closely with a single customer, developing a detailed and deep understanding of your customer’s activity and learning about their business. Identifying key stakeholders and building effective and productive relationships are also vital aspects for these roles. 

We are also recruiting roles for our new audit response team. We are building this team of skilled internal auditors who are briefed, prepared and able to ‘hit the ground running’ to support any of our customer teams across government on a range of programmes and activities. 

With access to high profile work, you will work alongside key decision makers, audit specialists and private sector contractors within the Agency, challenging and developing your skills as well as ensuring we meet our customers’ expectations. 

The variety and contribution of these roles is unparalleled across government. No two days will ever be the same in these fast-paced roles that will provide challenge, stretch and the opportunity to make a positive difference to the successful delivery of the UK government’s goals.

Customer Facing Team

For our customer facing roles you will work closely with a single customer, developing a detailed and deep understanding of your customer’s activity and learning about their business. Identifying key stakeholders and building effective and productive relationships are also vital aspects for these roles.

Audit Response Team 

For roles in our Audit Response Team (ART), you will deliver a portfolio of audits across a number of our customers, collaborating closely with our customer teams. As a member of our ART team, you will also have access to dedicated, bespoke development programmes to support you to get up to speed, and you’ll work closely with all our high-performing and highly supportive teams where we you will have the opportunity to expand and enrich your skills.  

Whichever pathway you choose, these roles are an ideal opportunity for career development, with opportunities for progression within the Agency and the wider civil service, enabling you to develop a broad career base gaining experience of building and maintaining strategic relationships at the most senior levels. 

Audit Manager Responsibilities

• Lead on the development and implementation of audit plans for our customers, bringing to this an understanding of the risk environment, materiality and the control framework.
• Oversee the delivery of a portfolio of risk-based audits, managing auditors and liaising with senior stakeholders to ensure effective delivery, and deliver complex audits yourself.
• Act as a member of an audit management team, supporting Senior Audit Managers and Group Chief Internal Auditors, and play an active part in the delivery of corporate objectives to develop and grow the Agency.
• Manage a team of auditors, building an inclusive and supportive team, setting direction and providing support, advice and development.
• Be accountable for the quality of audit work, including compliance with professional standards and compliance with GIAA’s new single audit methodology and audit management software across your portfolio of audits.
• Take account of key requirements and practices when planning and prioritising work, ensuring that the delivery of plans meet management and stakeholder expectations including timeframes, budgets and quality.
• Communicate the results of audits effectively to senior stakeholders and provide appropriate analysis and insight to influence improvements in risk management, governance and internal control and support effective delivery of government priorities in our customers.
• Show judgment when potential risk exposure seems significant and escalate matters through the appropriate management/customer channels – this may involve liaison with specialists within the Agency or with outside advisers.
• Be accountable for the performance of the team (including work delivered by private sector firms performing co-sourced audits) in meeting agreed plans, objectives and targets, as well as the resulting provision of audit assurance to the Accounting Officer and/or Partner Organisations.

In addition:

For Customer Team Roles:

• Develop deep understanding of the customer through building relationships with key stakeholders in order to provide high quality analysis and insight.

For Audit Response Team Roles:

• Ensure effective and efficient delivery of a portfolio of audits across several customers and collaborate effectively with customer-facing teams.

Person specification

You will be required to write a statement of suitability of up to 750 words setting out how your skills and experience meet the following criteria:

• Significant experience of successfully planning, managing and delivering a portfolio of risk-based internal audit reviews.
• Strong strategic thinking skills and an ability to interpret complex, conflicting information and make sound judgements.
• Effective decision making and the ability to manage conflicting priorities, targeting work to key risk areas.
• The ability to build and maintain relationships across an organisation at all levels, influencing senior stakeholders to adopt good practice internal control, risk management and governance processes.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to interpret complex audit judgements and deliver insight for senior and specialist audiences.
• Experience of successfully leading a team of internal auditors and of managing and developing staff.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £53,661, Government Internal Audit Agency contributes £14,488 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths, Experience and Technical skills.

As part of our pre-employment security checks, if you are invited to interview and are not a current GIAA member of staff, you will need to bring:

• Proof of identity, e.g. your passport or driver’s license. Documents must be in date and valid.
• Proof of address, e.g. a utility bill or bank statement issued within the past 3 months
• Proof of your National Insurance (NI) number, e.g. letter from DWP confirming your NI number, or P60
• If you do not bring a UK or EU passport, you will need to bring other documentation of your right to work in the UK, e.g. your visa, biometric residence permit or birth certificate.

Further details regarding acceptable documents will be provided in the invitation to interview.

Please let us know if your contact details change at any time during the selection process.

Eligibility Statement

Individuals appointed to the Treasury Group will be subject to National Security Vetting. To allow for meaningful checks to be carried out applicants will normally need to have lived in the UK for at least 3 out of the past 5 years. A lack of UK residency in itself is not always a bar to security clearance but the Department will need to consider eligibility on a case by case basis using all information that can be obtained following a successful application.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

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.