About the job

Job summary

The ISTAR Air Wing Competency Manager manages the ISTAR Air Wing Competency and Authorisations program, currently held on STARS (Squadron Training and Authorisation Recording System). The position is responsible to the ISTAR Commander Air Wing through the ISTAR Air Wing Executive Officer (XO) for providing direction, guidance, and training to STARS users across the ISTAR Air Wing. The position will also carry out day-to-day STARS management and updates in-line with published standards, audits, and training tracking. The ISTAR Air Wing consists of 15 Sqns and sections located predominately at RAF Waddington or RAF Lossiemouth; all of whom use STARS as business as usual.

This post is advertised at 37 hours per week.

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. 

Job description

• Day-to-day management of STARS for ISTAR Air Wing units. The candidate must have the availability to travel between RAF Waddington and RAF Lossiemouth to ensure that support can be given to all Force Elements.
• Control of engineering and operating authorisations on STARS, through granting permissions, and provide training and guidance to STARS users.
• Work in conjunction with ISTAR Air Wing Engineering and Air Standards Evaluation team, whilst using prior knowledge of MoD policy, to ensure records and standards are accurate and compliant.
• Guide and direct the ISTAR Units STARS admins (c.80 personnel) to include local training programmes, strategy meetings, problem solving and program updates. This includes ensuring that all local orders for the management of authorisations and competencies remain accurate and up to date.
• Manage and run the STARS audit programme to identify errors and to provide evidence of compliance to the Military Continuing Airworthiness Manager/Senior Operator/Standards Evaluation team/Commander Air Wing/Delivery Duty Holder.
• Creation of new resources on STARS which are Force wide compatible, including the generation of flying sortie planning and aircrew currencies.
• Ensure that the security of STARS data is maintained in accordance with the JSP 440 and Data Protection Act 1998.
• Develop platform specific requirements in conjunction with Force Element hierarchies.
• Creation of Quality Currency Controls to include new currencies, data sets, and data management.
• Liaise with external agencies to ensure correct access, updates and planned outages, whilst offering additional support through the Microsoft Teams STARS page.

Person specification

The candidate should be highly competent with computer based tasks, numerical reasoning and analytical skills. They must possess an enhanced ability to communicate with multiple medias, such as face-to-face, teleconferencing and presentations. The candidate should also be able to work independently, in small and large teams, and be able to make decisions quickly and accurately. 

The successful candidate should possess the following essential experience/qualifications:

• Protecting Information Level 1
• Display Screen Equipment Assessment
• Equality and Diversity training
• Q-GEN-QAS (or ISO9001 auditing equivalent (can be gained once in post))
• Enhanced Multi-Station user

It is highly desirable that the candidate should possess:

• STARS training
• Experience of engineering and operations authorisations
• Management of competencies.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £35,290, Ministry of Defence contributes £9,528 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.

Candidates will be required to provide CV details to include: job history; qualification details and previous skills and experience.

At sift, you will be assessed against your CV and the following Behaviours:

• Leadership
• Making effective decisions
• Managing a quality service
• Changing and improving 

At interview, you will be assessed against the following Behaviours:

• Leadership
• Making effective decisions
• Managing a quality service
• Changing and improving 

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.
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: DBSCivPers-Resourcingteam3@mod.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 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.