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

The Defence Business Services Knowledge and Information Management Records and Review Team consists of 20 records management specialists. Our role is to safeguard the corporate memory of the MoD by ensuring that records are reviewed and selected for preservation or disposal in accordance with both the Public Records Act and the records retention policy of the MoD. Transferring records selected for preservation to the National Archives (TNA) and other nominated places of deposit, such as museums, we play an active role in unlocking the history of our nation for the public. We also play a vital role in ensuring long term national security, retaining and regularly reviewing records that are not appropriate for public release.

Supporting the Review Team, Records Preparation and Archiving Assistants are responsible for processing information selected for preservation not yet appropriate for public release, ensuring it is correctly extracted from open records and withheld on Retention Instruments (RIs). Reporting to the Archive Manager, they also assist in the management of the MoD Archive, ensuring contained records are held securely, catalogued accurately and provided when due for review, as well as interrogating the Archive database and facilitating access to information in support of requests from internal and external customers.

This role provides a unique and exciting opportunity to contribute to the preservation of the history of Defence for both for the Ministry of Defence’s own corporate memory and the people of the United Kingdom.

Main responsibilities:

• Redacting information not yet appropriate for public release from open files
• Drafting and submitting applications to have information not yet appropriate for public release withheld on RIs
• Preparing records prior to transfer to TNA, to preserve damaged documentation
• Assisting with the delivery of records to TNA
• Adding records to, and removing them from, the MoD Archive and its supporting database
• Performing searches of the MoD Archive databases in support of requests from customers, retrieving and supplying relevant information
• The transmission of information via appropriate channels
• Conducting regular audits of archived material, to confirm record location and details are correctly recorded on the Archive database, resolving any discrepancies
• Investigating and resolving queries on the status of withheld information
  Secondary responsibilities
• Other ad hoc tasks as required by the Archive Manager

Person specification

With accuracy paramount in all areas of the role, you must be methodical, focussed and possess good attention to detail. You should have experience of using MS Office suite applications and of analysing, manipulating and interpreting information to achieve correct outcomes, and possess good communication skills to confidently present results to both staff and customers. As you will be managing a workload of diverse tasks with varied deadlines, you should be both well organised and proactive to identify and meet current needs, as well as able to shift focus to address emerging priorities.

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, Ability and Experience.

Completing your application 

Behaviour examples requires more than just information about what you did, it requires you to explain. There are many different approaches you could take to writing behaviours, such as the STAR, or the CAR method. As to which one you chose to use, it’s all down to your personal style of writing. Within the Civil Service, the most common approach is: The STAR method. 

Using the STAR method, allows you to set the scene, show what and how you did and the overall outcome. The job holder (and later the interviewer) will use this method to gather all the relevant information about a specific capability that the job requires. 

Situation - Describe the situation you found yourself in. You must describe a specific event or situation. Be sure to give enough detail for the job holder to understand. 

• Where are you?
• Who was there with you?
• What had happened?

Task - The job holder will want to understand what you tried to achieve from the situation you found yourself in. 

• What was the task that you had to complete and why?
• What did you have to achieve?

Actions - What did you do? The job holder will be looking for information of what you did, how you did it and why. Keep the focus on you. What specific steps did you take and what was your contribution? Remember to include how you did it, and the behaviours you used. Try to use “I” rather than “we” to explain your actions that lead to the result. Be careful not to take credit of something that you did not do. 

Results - Don’t be shy about taking credit for your behaviour. Quote specific facts and figures easily understandable. 

• What results did the actions produce?
• What did you achieve through your actions and did you meet your goals?
• Was it a successful outcome? If not what did you learn from the experience?

Keep the situation and task parts brief. Concentrate on the action and the result. If the result was not entirely successful describe what you learned from this and what you would do differently next time. Make sure you focus on your strengths. 

Remember- if you are a school leaver or out of employment, and feel that you don’t have the experience to apply for this role then do this-

Make a list of your skills, strength and experience 

Focus on your education/day-to-day life/extra-curricular activities such as team sports 

Highlight anything that would help you perform in the job that you are applying for 

For more information on applying for Civil Service jobs and completing your application please visit- 

The STAR method , National Careers Service

 

Success Profiles - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

 

Working for the Civil Service - Civil Service - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

 

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 folowing success profile elements:

Primary: Behaviour - Managing a Quality Service

Secondary: Behaviour - Making Effective Decisions

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

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

• Experience - CV: Job History, Previous skills & experience
• Behaviour - Managing a Quality Service
• Behaviour - Making Effective Decisions
• Behaviour - Delivering at Pace
• Ability - Verbal

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

• Behaviour - Managing a Quality Service
• Behaviour - Making Effective Decisions
• Behaviour - Delivering at Pace
• Behaviour - Leadership
• Behaviour - Working Together
• Behaviour - Changing and Improving

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 - Behaviour - Managing a Quality Service
• 2 - Behaviour - Making Effective Decisions
• 3 - Behaviour - Delivering at Pace
• 4 - Behaviour - Changing and Improving
• 5 - Behaviour - Working Together
• 6 - Behaviour - Leadership

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

• 1 - Behaviour - Managing a Quality Service
• 2 - Behaviour - Making Effective Decisions
• 3 - Behaviour - Delivering at Pace
• 4 - Experience - CV

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: 03/01/2024.

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

Interviews will be conducted week commencing: 22/01/2024.

A minimum of 2 full working days’ notice will be provided for interviews.

We endeavour to stick to these dates, but these are subject to change around business needs.

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. 

To assist with your application please find attached -  

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

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 developed vetting (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.