About the job

Job summary

Immigration Enforcement is responsible for enforcing the government’s immigration laws, tackling illegal migration, removing foreign national offenders and immigration offenders from the UK. It also aims to disrupt the organised criminal groups that exploit the vulnerable for their personal gain. 

Learn more on the Immigration Enforcement careers page.

Job description

We are looking for a motivated, organised and flexible EO Diary Manager and Executive Assistant to join the small team working to the Immigration Enforcement Detention Services Director and one of their Deputy Directors.

Your role will include managing the Director's and a Deputy Director's time and diary on a daily basis and liaising with senior internal and external stakeholders via email and phone to gather information, manage expectations and resolve diary clashes. The successful candidate will also be responsible for travel and accommodation bookings, Metis actions on behalf of the Director/Deputy Director and any other ad hoc administrative tasks required by the Director/Deputy Director or wider Private Office. 

The role requires a high-performing and enthusiastic individual with a flexible and collaborative approach to their work.

You will be someone who can work well as part of a high performing team and are equally comfortable working independently. In this role, you will be making a positive contribution to the overall success of the business area. This role suits a self-starter who can follow work through to completion with, at times, limited oversight but is able to draw on their support network when required.

Note:  You may be required to carry out other duties within the scope of the grade and within the limits of your skill, competence and training.

Please note the following:

Due to business requirements this role is only suitable for full time working. Compressed hours may be considered.

There is no shift working requirement, and therefore no AHW/AHA allowance available for this role.

Regular travel to Croydon/London will be required.

Person specification

We are looking for a strong communicator who is extremely well organised and able to work effectively with senior managers both across the civil service and externally and deal with multiple requests concurrently and competing priorities.  

The role requires a high-performing and enthusiastic individual with a flexible and collaborative approach to their work.

You will be someone who can work well as part of a high performing team and are equally comfortable working independently. This role suits a self-starter who can follow work through to completion with, at times, limited oversight but is able to draw on their support network when required.

Note: An employee may be required to carry out other duties within the scope of the grade and within the limits of their skill, competence and training.

Your main day to day responsibilities will be: 

• Scheduling diary engagements and room bookings. Working proactively to resolve scheduling conflicts & prioritising issues effectively to meet challenging deadlines.
• Working closely with other Executive Assistants across IE to provide all round support.
• Developing a sufficient understanding of the directorate to provide wider support as required.
• Recognising the sensitivities and reputational impact of your role and developing an understanding of the wider IE business to support the Director/Deputy Director's priorities.
• Managing busy inboxes, assessing incoming messages to ensure high priority matters are dealt with on receipt or escalated appropriately. Take responsibility for drafting and responding to general enquiries in a timely and professional manner and storing / archiving management information as required to ensure it is readily retrievable.

You will also be expected to carry out the following day to day activities:

• Developing a network of key internal and external contacts and stakeholders to coordinate meetings and workstreams to support the effective operation of the Senior Civil Servant (SCS) Private Office.
• Arranging all travel, hotel bookings on behalf of the SCS's, processing expenses and raising purchase requisitions in a timely and accurate manner ensuring value for money at all times.
• Being a professional representative in all dealings associated with the SCS’s Private Office e.g. colleagues, key stakeholders and other Private Offices across the Home Office and beyond.
• Assisting with on-boarding of new staff, gathering and collating relevant information, ensuring appropriate forms are completed and dispatched and that equipment is ordered and delivered in a timely manner.
• Supporting the organisation and delivery of staff/ team events through key administrative support and assistance.
• Providing wider general support to the Senior Management Team.

Essential Criteria

You will have the following skills or some experience in:

• Working in a key support team within a large, complex, fast paced and highly regulated environment while maintaining a high level of confidentiality at all times.
• Demonstrating resilience and displaying personal presence, effectiveness and credibility to work with senior staff in a highly pressurised environment.
• Possessing the ability to respond flexibly to the wider pressures facing the senior team and colleagues and having the intellectual curiosity to understand the impact your role and decisions have on the bigger organisational picture.
• Being highly organised with a strong attention to detail and an ability to plan and prioritise.
• Utilising effective verbal and written communication skills with an ability to tailor your style and approach dependent on the audience.
• Having a highly proactive and positive attitude to push tasks through to completion.
• Demonstrating proficiency in using Microsoft Office applications (for e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint).

Desirable Criteria

• Experience of managing a diary and/or an inbox.
• Experience of working in a Private Office environment.
• Experience of Immigration Enforcement or Migration and Borders. 

Benefits

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

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.

This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, drives up performance and improves diversity and inclusivity.

As part of the application process, you will be asked to complete: 

• A statement of suitability (personal statement) (maximum 750 words)

Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

The statement of suitability should be aligned to demonstrate your skills and experience for the role and how you meet the essential criteria as detailed in the job description.

For guidance on how to construct your personal statement, you are encouraged to visit Civil Service Careers. Links – Statement

The sift will be held on the statement of suitability (personal statement). 

If you are successful at sift stage, you will be invited to an interview which will be behaviour-based questions.

For guidance on how to construct your behaviour examples, you are encouraged to visit Civil Service Careers. Links –Behaviours 

Problems during the application process

If you experience accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, or you think you’ve made a mistake on an initial application (e.g. you have ticked the incorrect eligibility box), please contact hocandidates.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk at least two working days before the vacancy closes. After this, we may not be able to reopen your application.

Please note, we cannot make amendments to any part of the application.

Please use the following in the subject line in your email if you need to get in contact with us about your initial application “Please re-open my application – Vacancy Ref 348985 CLOSING DATE 26/5/2024. 

For reasonable adjustments queries or requests, please see details with reasonable adjustments section.

Tie break decisions

The strengths and/or behaviours being assessed will be ranked in order of importance to enable us to differentiate between candidates with tied interview scores. Please note that the order in which behaviours are listed in the advert does not necessarily reflect the order of importance.

Sift and Interview dates

Sift is expected to take place week commencing 27 May 2024.

Interviews are expected to take place week commencing 24 June 2024.

We will try to meet the dates set out in the advert, however on occasions these dates may change.

Interviews will be carried out via video. Candidates will be required to have access to:

• A laptop (personal or work) with a working webcam
• Good internet connection
• Microsoft Teams

Further Information

For meaningful checks to be carried out, individuals need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. You should normally have been resident in the United Kingdom for the last 3 years if the role requires CTC clearance, 5 years for SC clearance and 10 years for DV.  A lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance and applicants should contact the Vacancy Holder/Recruiting Manager listed in the advert for further advice.

For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the following page https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/demystifying-vetting

Selecting your locations

Please note only list locations where you are prepared to work and can travel to (as you could be offered any of your noted preferences).

When completing your application, you will have the opportunity to select your preferred location(s). Please ensure you select all locations you are interested in on the understanding that you can be posted to any location that you put in your preferences. If you would only like to be posted to one location, please confirm one location only. If you are posted to a location that you have requested and you do not accept that location, you may not be offered another role. Please note, only advertised locations can be offered.

Reserve List

Where a campaign identifies more appointable candidates than there are available vacancies, a reserve list may be held for up to 12 months. 

Reserve lists will be managed by locational merit lists, appointing in merit order per location. You may be offered a post at any of your preferred locations. 

Whilst on a reserve list we may offer you an alternative similar role in the Home Office. Should you reject an alternative role, you will remain on the reserve list for the role you applied for. If you accept an alternative role, you will be withdrawn from the reserve list. 

Please note there are no guarantees that further vacancies will arise in the locations you originally applied for before your time on the reserve list expires.

Candidates Please Note:

Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. All applications are screened for plagiarism and copying of examples/answers from internet sources. If any is detected the application will be withdrawn from the process. Further action, including disciplinary action, may be considered in such cases involving internal candidates. Providing false or misleading information would be contrary to the core values of honesty and integrity expected of all Civil Servants.

If you are currently an agency member of staff working within the Home Office, a contractor or contingent worker you can only apply for roles that are advertised externally, i.e.: outside the civil service. If you are eligible to apply for a role, you are required to select yourself as an external applicant and not internal when submitting your application on Civil Service jobs. This will prevent any delays in pre-employment checks should you become successful in being made an offer of employment after the Interview stage.

Flexible 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 employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office, subject to local estates capacity, by Spring 2024.  Applicants can request further information regarding how this may work in their team from the Vacancy Holder (see advert for contact details).

This role is full time only. Applicants who wish to work an alternative pattern are welcome to apply however your preferred working pattern may not be available and you should discuss this with the vacancy holder before applying.

Every day, Home Office civil servants do brilliant work to develop and deliver policies and services that affect the lives of people across the country and beyond. To do this effectively and fairly, the Home Office is committed to representing modern Britain in all its diversity, and creating a welcoming, inclusive workplace where all our people are able to bring their whole selves to work and perform at their best.

We are flexible, skilled, professional and diverse. We work to recruit and retain disabled staff and area Disability Confident Leader. We are proud to be one of the most ethnically diverse departments in the civil service. We are a Social Mobility Foundation top 75 employer.

New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant's details held on the IFD will be refused employment.

For further information please see the attached notes for candidates which must be read before making an application.

Existing Civil Servants should note that some of the Home Office terms and conditions of employment have changed. It is the candidate’s responsibility to ensure they are aware of the Terms and Conditions they will adopt should they be successful in application and should refer to the notes for candidates for further details.

Transfer Terms: Voluntary.

If you are invited to an interview you will be required to  bring a range of documentation for the purposes of establishing identity and to aid any pre-employment checks.

Please see the attached list of Home Office acceptable ID documents.

Any move to the Home Office from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

Reasonable Adjustments

If a person with disabilities is at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes. 

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:

• Contact Government Recruitment Service via HOrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs
• Complete the “Assistance Required” section in the “Additional Requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you're deaf, a language service professional

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the ‘Contact point for applicants’ section.

Feedback

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.