About the job

Job summary

The Strategy, Sustainability and Impact Group (SSIG) is responsible within UKEF for contributing and responding to HMG strategy and policy developments, oversight of corporate strategy and planning, setting policy, central responsibility for UKEF’s approach to Climate Change matters and Sustainable Development Goals, and engaging internationally in UKEF’s capacity as an ECA.

Within SSIG, the Information and Governance division leads on three major areas:

1) Governance

2) Knowledge and Information Management

2) The SSIG Office

Job description

The Information Officer will help to deliver:

• Responses to information requests (e.g., Freedom of Information requests, subject access requests) received by the department
• Responses to internal reviews and submissions to the Information Commissioner’s Office
• Responses to complaints submitted to the department
• Data breach processing
• Work relating to records management, information assets and data protection assurance
• Publication of UKEF’s transparency data in alignment with cross-Whitehall requirements
• Secretariat functions for one of the department’s committees

Knowledge and Information Management is responsible for developing and implementing policies, processes and technology to more effectively manage the department’s knowledge and information. We are committed to nurturing a culture of valuing knowledge and information within the department to enable UKEF staff to locate, save, share appropriately, re-use and protect the information they use.  

Should you be successful in this role, there is the opportunity to undertake a Apprenticeship (subject to course availability and candidates existing qualifications).

Person specification

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Environmental Information Regulations (EIR)

• Maintaining a full understanding of the scope of FOIA and EIR and their applicability when considering requests for information.
• Co-ordination of UKEF’s responses to requests made under FOIA, EIR, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act (DPA) within deadlines by: monitoring the Information Access mailbox on a daily basis; liaising as necessary with the Legal Division (LD) (and ensuring LD clearance) on the responses; seeking relevant input from other divisions within UKEF, other government departments and other third parties (e.g., exporters); drafting submissions (including to the “qualified person”) on exemptions to be applied, and ensuring other clearances are obtained).
• Co-ordination of UKEF’s responses to internal review cases, cases at the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the Information Tribunal within deadlines, in liaison with LD (and ensuring LD clearance), the ICO and other relevant parties (e.g., the internal reviewer). Actively manage relationships with key stakeholders, such as the Cabinet Office, keeping them up to date, responding in a timely manner to Cabinet Office requests for any data or other information, and maintaining a network of contacts with the Cabinet Office and other government departments to learn and share experience.

Complaints

• Helping to manage the department’s complaints mailbox; taking ownership of complaints received by logging on the department’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application and processing them; liaising with stakeholders across the department to understand the nature of the complaint and the most appropriate way to respond; drafting responses to complaints; submitting responses for clearance to LD and senior UKEF staff.

Data Breaches

• Monitoring a shared mailbox for data breach reports; acting promptly to process data breaches within a 72-hour timeframe and according to internal policy and process; liaising with stakeholders to assess the severity of data breach, including consulting with LD; providing recommendation to senior colleagues on the severity of data breach, remediating actions and any appropriate reporting; logging data breaches on log.

Knowledge and Information Management (KIM)

• Contributing to the formulation of policies in respect of knowledge and information management and records management. Providing assistance to the Records Manager in initiating improvements to the department’s records management and undertaking monitoring of good record-keeping compliance. Establishing and maintaining an information management hub on the department’s intranet as a point of access for relevant documents.
• Consolidating and building on work already done in respect of the department’s requirements under GDPR to ensure that UK Export Finance is complying fully with legislative requirements and aligning with Government and UKEF policies on the use and retention of personal data.
• Co-ordination of the department’s transparency returns to ensure UK Export Finance remains consistent with Government guidelines on the publication of transparency data. This will include liaising with the Cabinet Office to deliver returns, address relevant issues and ascertain requirements; engaging with relevant divisions to ensure that processes are aligned with transparency requirements and that returns are completed accurately and on time; updating and maintaining as necessary the department’s publication scheme.
• Supporting the development of training and guidance to the department of data protection and guidance and wider records management to improve culture and awareness of knowledge and information management.

Secretariat

• Acting as secretary to one of UKEF’s executive committees, to ad hoc committees and boards, and to sub-committees of the Board (namely the Audit and Risk Committees) as required. Provide cover for others in SPoCC who provide secretariat, for example to the Security and Information Management Committee or Export Guarantees Advisory Council (EGAC).
• Provide a responsive, efficient and high-quality secretariat support. Ensure the maintenance of up-to-date terms of reference and operating frameworks; managing the timely circulation of papers; ensuring the production of consistently high- quality papers: and ensure the alignment of agendas with other committees and boards.

This list is not exhaustive, and you may be required to carry out additional duties according to business need.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £37,000, UK Export Finance contributes £9,990 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, Experience and Technical skills.

You will be invited to complete the online application form.  The application form must be completed by 23.55 on the day of the closing date for it to be accepted.

All applications will be sifted against our minimum selection criteria outlined in the personal specification.

You will be asked in the relevant sections of the application form to provide examples of evidence against a range of the success profiles (refer to appendix 1).  Where applicants are asked to apply with a personal statement, you should fully articulate in 500 words how you meet the essential criteria outlined in the person specification within the Information Pack

For the initial sift your application will be evaluated against:

• Experience
• Technical
• Behaviours (you will be required to write a 250-word statement for each):
• Managing a Quality Service
• Delivering at Pace

If you are successful following the sift stage, you will be invited to an initial interview; this will include the following assessment:

• Behaviours/Technical/Experience - a formal panel interview where you will be interviewed across all four behaviours highlighted in appendix 1 and your technical ability to successfully carry out the role.
• Technical - a short exercise (this will be on a topic determined by UKEF and will need to be prepared in advance).

Details of interview panel members will be e-mailed to all successful candidates who are invited for interview.

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.