About the job

Job summary

Are you a dedicated person who is passionate about making a difference?

Would you like to work for the Ministry of Defence?

Defence Business Services (DBS) is one of the largest shared service organisations in Europe that provides a wide range of corporate services, to over 1.2 million end users, including serving and past military and families, as well as MoD civil servants and industry. DBS delivers large scale administration and smaller specialist services to enable the wider MOD to focus on its core aims, maintaining the UK’s Defence and Security. Services include Human Resources, Pay, Veterans, Finance and Procurement.

• Our Vision - To support UK defence customers with outstanding service every time.
• Our Mission - Together we will proudly support Defence, continuously improving and delivering flexible, timely, sustainable and value for money services that underpin the whole force and enhance operational capability.

DBS is committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues. We are building an inclusive culture and respectful environment that reflects the diversity of the society.

We want to maximise the potential of everyone who chooses to work for us through opportunities to develop your skills and experience. We also offer a range of flexible working patterns and support to make a fulfilling career accessible to you and offer a Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%. Where your role permits, we support a blended working approach alternatively known as hybrid working.

Come and join the DBS community today!

Job description

To maintain, monitor and manage the provision of support for the Armed Forces concerning worldwide Casualty and Compassionate Casework, post death administration and mass casualty incidents.

 The incumbent of the post will be responsible for administering all casualty and compassionate casework. Ensuring casualty and Compassionate cases are dealt with in a timely, accurate and sensitive manner by:

•    Tasking Services/Units to provide notification and support to families of casualties.
•    Ensuring the appropriate arrangements are made for transporting relatives overseas to the bedside of the injured and for arranging the repatriation of the deceased.
•    Liaison with Civil authorities over occurrences involving Service Personnel.
•    Briefing higher authorities as necessary on high profile cases and entering and maintaining full details of cases on appropriate databases.
•    Action requests for compassionate travel for entitled personnel serving overseas to return to the UK when circumstances dictate. This will involve: liaison with other agencies to arrange transport and support and deciding on the appropriate priority for travel.

Person specification

This post can be very busy and the duties are often demanding, dealing with bereaved families and potentially distressing matters. An understanding of military personnel procedures and an extensive understanding of the organisational structures of the 3 Services is highly desirable.

The incumbent will also be required to participate in an ‘on call’ roster for augmentation of the JCCC in the event of a major casualty incident, for which an on-call allowance will be paid. This commitment may require you to respond and work outside normal office hours. Overtime and any additional travel costs may be claimed for such duties. The incumbent must be IT literate and familiar with JPA and Microsoft Office Packages.

This post is office based. 

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £24,040, Ministry of Defence contributes £6,490 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 and Experience.

Please ensure that at the application and interview stages of the campaign you review the Success Profiles Framework to assist you in the demonstration of your skills and experience.

Your suitability for the role will be assessed using the Success Profile elements that have been chosen for this campaign. Each element will be scored accordingly, and the successful candidate will be appointed on merit.

Applications will be sifted on all Success Profile elements, but in the event of a high number of applications, an initial sift will be conducted on the following success profile elements:

Primary: Behaviour - Leadership

In this instance the remaining elements will be tested at interview.

At application stage you will be assessed against the following:

• Experience - CV
• Behaviour - Leadership
• Behaviour - Delivering at Pace
• Behaviour - Making Effective Decisions
• Behaviour - Working Together

At the interview stage you will be assessed against the following:

• Experience - CV
• Behaviour - Managing a Quality Service
• Behaviour - Delivering at Pace
• Behaviour - Seeing the Big Picture
• Behaviour - Communicating and Influencing

In the rare case where individuals have exact matching scores, the order of merit will be determined based on the behaviour scores at interview in the following order:

• 1 - Experience - CV
• 2 - Behaviour - Managing a Quality Service
• 3 - Behaviour - Delivering at Pace
• 4 - Behaviour - Seeing the Big Picture
• 5 - Behaviour - Communicating and Influencing

If candidate scores are still exact, the merit order will then be determined on the sift score in the following order:

• 1 - Experience - CV
• 2 - Behaviour - Leadership
• 3 - Behaviour - Delivering at Pace
• 4 - Behaviour - Making Effective Decisions
• 5 - Behaviour - Working Together

We want to offer opportunities to all who are successful at interview for our roles, but this isn’t always possible, so we do hold candidates on an active reserve list for 12 months. 

Application sifting to take place on: 18/12/2023

Interviews are currently taking place via the following method: Face to face

Interviews will be conducted week commencing: 09/01/2024

To assist with your application please find attached below: 

1.     DBS Candidate Information Guide -  Working for Defence Business Services - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Disability Confident Scheme  

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.   

If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact: DBS-EnhancedRecruitmentTeam@mod.gov.uk   

MOD Recruitment Satisfaction Survey – we may contact you regarding your experience to help us improve our customer satisfaction. The survey is voluntary and anonymous. You may however be given the opportunity to provide additional information to help us improve our service which includes the collection of some personal data as defined by the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). The MOD Privacy Notice sets out how we will use your personal data and your rights.

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points-based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical.  

The role currently being advertised has not been assessed as business critical and is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points-based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected, and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn.  

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

Open to UK nationals only.

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.