About the job

Job summary

The Home Office works to build a safe, fair, and prosperous UK. We achieve this through our work on counter-terrorism, policing, fire, crime, nationality, and immigration policy.

The Illegal Migration Operations Command (IMOC) is prioritising the operationalisation of the new Illegal Migration Act (IMA). This is a top priority, which is being led through twice weekly PM committee and will fundamentally alter the way in which the Government tackles illegal migration.

The Illegal Migration Act has been introduced in response to the Prime Minister’s commitment to respond to the pressure of small boat arrivals. One of its aims is to introduce a duty to remove anyone arriving illegally in the UK.

The newly formed Illegal Migration Operations Command looks to implement the Illegal Migration Act through processing and screening irregular migrants that fall under the new duties, as well as the creation of a new case working directorate.

The Illegal Migration Intake Unit (IMIU) is responsible for the registration and screening of those arriving in the UK illegally.

The Illegal Migration Intake Unit consists of the Kent Intake Unit (KIU), Midlands Intake Unit (MIU) within Yarl’s Wood IRC, Belfast Intake Unit, Manston Reception Centre, the Remote Operations Hub, the Intake Response Team, which is a national function providing critical support to all of IMIU, and the People and Planning Function providing corporate enablement to the operation. The unit is made up of over 700 officers.

Job description

The Higher Executive Officer in the Finance Team will play a pivotal role in managing day-to-day communication with customers, suppliers, external contractors, and internal colleagues. The successful candidate will assist in managing commercial contracts, identifying process improvements, and supporting the team in assigning accountability. 

In addition, the role will involve financial analysis, monitoring of expenditure, and contributing to the development of financial reports. They will also be responsible for a range of administrative tasks, including data input, contract management, and maintaining accurate records, with a focus on financial documentation. 

The role requires a high level of independence, with the candidate expected to work on their own initiative within the defined responsibilities, while also demonstrating a comprehensive understanding of financial principles and procedures.

Eligibility  
 
Please note - You must be over 18 and be a UK national for these roles at the time of application. You will be required to work between midnight and 4am, so being over 18 is a legal requirement. For more information visit: https://www.gov.uk/night-working-hours. 

Unfortunately, not all working patterns can be supported within this role. If you are applying for this role and require flexible or part-time working please ensure this is discussed and agreed with the vacancy holder before accepting an offer.

Person specification

Key responsibilities for this role will include but are not limited to:

• Leading by example, managing communication with customers, suppliers, and internal colleagues to monitor and respond to requirements, thereby ensuring a high-performance delivery by engaged team members.
• Driving improved outcomes by assisting in the management of commercial contracts, ensuring services are fit for purpose and resources are efficiently utilised.
• Showing innovation and creativity by identifying process gaps to support continuous improvement in systems, including Procurement, Transport Management, and Operational Business Needs, and contributing to Best Practice guidance.
• Creating an environment that supports the team in resolving and assigning accountability for the delivery and supply of goods and services, being responsible for delivering excellent service to achieve quality outcomes.
• Operating as part of a team focused on agreed goals and priorities to carry out administrative tasks, such as data input, maintaining Excel spreadsheets.
• Building individual and team capability by escalating any issues to line managers where appropriate, ensuring authority is delegated for problem-solving and issue resolution.
• Being accountable for developing and encouraging supplier on-site relationships, managing workloads, and assisting in the reconciliation of service delivery against invoices, ensuring invoices are processed and paid on time.
• Through your behaviour and ways of working, supporting, and assisting with the development of new data logging processes and systems, creating an environment of inclusivity and trust where everyone feels their contribution matters.
• Ensuring all financial aspects are handled properly, including managing IMIU's financial records, transactions, and reporting, developing, and implementing efficient accounting and budgeting procedures, conducting financial analysis to support IMIU's business planning, maintaining contracts and risk management for Finance, and assisting with the financial period month-end reports and inspecting the General Ledgers, categories, and sub-categories.
• Line management of a small team.

Essential criteria

Successful candidates must be professional, and customer focused and be able to demonstrate:  

• Proven experience in managing commercial contracts. Experience in financial analysis, budgeting, and risk management.
• Proven leadership experience, gaining commitment from colleagues by fostering open discussion, innovation, and idea generation to support a unified vision. Ability to coach and develop team members to acquire new skills and collaborate effectively within a team environment.
• Sound interpersonal, written, and verbal communication skills, with the capability to engage with diverse audiences. Ability to communicate clearly and enthusiastically while treating others with respect, compassion, and valuing inclusion and diversity.
• Demonstrated ability to make effective and difficult decisions, particularly under pressure, while correctly applying legislation and policy guidance to ensure compliance.
• Proficiency in Microsoft applications, demonstrating a good level of computer literacy.
• Ability to work independently with minimal supervision. Strong problem-solving capabilities, analytical skills, and the aptitude to handle multiple tasks while effectively prioritising.

Desirable criteria

Ideally, you will also have some knowledge and/or experience of:

• Managing relationships with suppliers.
• Project delivery.
• Finance, budget and reconciliation activities.

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, Strengths and Experience.

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

• Statement of Suitability (Personal Statement) (maximum 1000 words)
• Provide evidence of the Behaviour 'Managing a Quality Service' (250 words maximum)

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

The Statement of Suitability (Personal Statement) 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. 

The sift will be held on the Behaviour 'Managing a Quality Service' and the Personal Statement.  

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

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

The sift will be completed initially on the Personal Statement.

The Personal Statement will be marked first for all candidates. Candidates who meet the minimum pass score for the Personal Statement, will then go on to have their lead Behaviour 'Managing a Quality Service' scored and will receive sift scores for both elements. Candidates who fail to meet the minimum pass score for the Personal Statement will not have their lead Behaviour scored and will only receive a sift score for their Personal Statement.

If you are successful at sift stage, you will be invited to an interview which will be a blended approach of Strength-based questions and Behaviour-based questions on all listed Behaviours. 

Strengths are the things that you do regularly, do well and that motivate you. To find out more about Strength-based questions click here

Sift and Interview dates

Sift is expected to take place week commencing 4th March 2024.

Interviews are expected to take place week commencing 25th March 2024.

We will try to meet the dates set out in the advert, however these may change due to business needs. You will be provided with sufficient notice of the confirmed dates.

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

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

It is advisable to access your interview from a windows operating system laptop, desktop, phone or tablet as there is no guarantee that Microsoft Teams will work without issue on an Apple laptop, tablet or desktop.

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

Please be aware the levels of national security clearance are changing which may impact on the level needed for this role by the time of appointment. All efforts will be made to keep candidates informed of any changes and what that will mean in terms of vetting criteria. For more information please See our vetting charter

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. 

Please note: 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.

Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. Where this is the case, employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in the office. Applicants can discuss any specific questions with the Vacancy Holder. 

Who are eligible to apply to roles advertised Internally and Across Government?

Internally advertised roles are open to existing Home Office staff only.

Across Government roles are open to all government departments and Accredited NDPBs.

Roles are restricted to existing:

• Permanent Civil Servants.
• Fixed term appointments who were appointed following fair and open competition.  Please speak to your HR department if you are unsure of how you were recruited.
• Employees of those NDPBs who have been Accredited by the Civil Service Commission (see NDPB Accreditation - Civil Service Commission (independent.gov.uk).  Please check if you are a Civil Servant or Accredited NDPB Public Servant.  Public servants from Accredited NDPBs will be recruited as external hires rather than civil servant transfers. See section on NDPBs within the Candidate Information Notes.

Also see the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles for more information on Exceptions Recruitment - Civil Service Commission (independent.gov.uk)

 Other worker types operating within the public sector (e.g. Agency workers, Contractors, police, military, NHS etc.) and those appointed under Exceptions 1-4 of the CS Commission’s Recruitment Principles (including Secondments, Seasonal Workers) are not eligible to apply.  They can only apply to Externally advertised roles.

A reserve list may be held for a period up to 12 months from which further appointment may be made.

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 counter-terrorist 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.