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. 

Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working.  This is a non-contractual arrangement where all office-based employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in office, subject to capacity and any required workplace adjustments.  Requirements to attend other locations for official business, or work in another MOD office, will also count towards this level of attendance. Applicants can request further information regarding how this may work in their team from the Vacancy Holder (see advert for contact details). Defence Business Services cannot respond to any questions about working arrangements.  

Come and join the DBS community today! 

Job description

DBS DIT provides digital capability that supports corporate services across the Ministry of Defence, including Finance, Commercial, Payroll and Human Resources for Military Personnel, Civilian Personnel and Veterans. Our digital solutions comprise enterprise resource planning systems, performance management, analytics, automation, low code applications and public facing services through Gov.uk.

As a Junior Cognos Report Developer within the Finance and Commercial MI team you will be responsible for the development and maintenance of Cognos Management Information (MI) reports, dashboards and underlying MI data models relating to the Contracting, Purchasing and Finance (CP&F) system. 
As part of the programme you will be accountable for delivering against agreed projects, changes and supporting the system’s live services.  

Main Responsibilities

The successful candidate will be responsible for:

• Providing a responsive MI service delivering accurate, complete and meaningful reports & dashboards, with outputs presented and delivered to customers to meet their needs.
• Engaging and working with MI users, functional areas, technical providers and other stakeholders to ensure that MI requirements are met, and the MI service is effectively and efficiently delivered in line with Finance & Commercial release programme.
• Producing and testing new MI products and services, ensuring that customer requirements are met, and DBS Stakeholders are engaged with.   
• Building, coding, peer testing, updating and documenting CP&F report specifications using agreed standards and tools, to achieve well-engineered results. 
• Understanding the customer’s business and MI requirements to provide insight into and analysis of Finance and Commercial data and information.
• Acting as focal point for customers of Finance and Commercial MI, publishing information notices on change and contribute to stakeholder forums as appropriate.
• Establishing and maintaining strong, collaborative relationships with other reporting teams across the Cognos estate to ensure a coordinated and cohesive work effort.
• Managing minor change to agreed timescales and to appropriate delivery methods.
• Continually review performance against plan and targets, with regular reporting to your line management.

Person specification

The successful candidate must have:

Essential

• Demonstratable skills/experience producing reports and visualisations using data analytics tools, for example, Power BI, MS Excel.

Desirable

• Experience in using IBM Cognos Analytics software applications.
• Good working knowledge of Finance or Commercial processes and systems.
• Solution design and requirement analysis.
• Peer testing and data reconciliation experience.

Qualifications

• The successful candidate must hold or be willing to undertake training in IBM Cognos Analytics including Reporting, Data Modules and Framework Manager

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £28,300, Ministry of Defence contributes £7,641 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 your Primary : Experience - CV, Secondary: Experience - Personal Statement. In this instance the remaining elements will be tested at interview. 

At application stage you will be assessed against the following: 

Behaviours: 

• Managing a Quality Service
• Changing and Improving
• Making Effective Decisions

Experience:  

• CV (if applicable) 
• Personal Statement - In no more than 750 words, please provide information of how you meet the criteria set out in the job description. You may wish to further include examples of how you have used you skills/experience to produce reports and visualisations using data analytics tools.

At interview you will be assessed against the following: 

Behaviours: 

• Managing a Quality Service
• Changing and Improving
• Making Effective Decisions

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 - Changing and Improving
3. Behaviour - Making Effective Decisions
4. Behaviour - Delivering at Pace

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

1. Behaviour - Managing a Quality Service
2. Behaviour - Changing and Improving
3. Behaviour - Making Effective Decisions
4. Experience - CV
5. Experience - Personal statement

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 Late April 2024

Interviews are currently taking place via Ms Teams and will be conducted Early May 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 -   

- Working for Defence Business Services - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)  

(26) UK Ministry of Defence: Life , LinkedIn 

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

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.