About the job

Job summary

Navy Command Headquarters (NCHQ) is the nerve centre of the Naval Service. It supports operations around the globe and provides the ships, people, aircraft and equipment to deliver the UK’s defence policy.  

In Navy Command, our civil servants work alongside their military colleagues in jobs that matter; jobs which often have a direct impact on the quality of the operational capabilities we deliver.  Roles can offer great job satisfaction and there are many opportunities to develop and progress both within the Ministry of Defence and across the wider Civil Service.

The Submarine Directorate in Navy Command is responsible for all submarine in service capability and availability, including oversight of the Submarine Flotilla and Clyde Naval Base.

Clyde Capital Infrastructure Programme(s) consist of work comprising a mix of build and refurbishment of infrastructure and to enable to deliver current and future capabilities for Submarine operations on His Majesty's Naval Base (HMNB) Clyde.

This includes delivery of work as part of Government Major Programmes & Projects and including a top 100 government programme. This is an exciting time to join the team, and contribute to the delivery of a challenging and rewarding nationally important programme.

Desk Officers have the responsibility for managing the Navy Command Requirements from Concept, through Delivery, to Completion via the supply chain. Working with the Military User and project staff, Desk Officers are at the heart of requirement setting, Business Case production and the delivery of benefits of the infrastructure change programmes on handover to the military user. They champion the Navy’s best interests to ensure a more sustainable estate and reduce running costs.

This position is advertised at 37 hours per week.

Job description

Requirement Management

• Managing all requirements to provide support to the Project Manager throughout the life cycle of the requirement ensuring the requirement is accurately captured and providing feedback on design development. This includes holding Navy Command to account for all deliverables in all project stages.
• assist in defining, developing and delivering military Infrastructure requirements arising from prioritised Statements of Need (identified capability gaps or opportunities), ensure that they are taut, aligned with policy, and engineered to deliver value for money.
• Working in conjunction with the Project Sponsor will challenge requirements where necessary in order to establish the true nature of any capability gap with minimum military requirements. You will ensure that requirements are developed in accordance with current policy (eg security regulations and Navy financial and commercial policies)
• Ensuring that the ‘whole estate’ requirement is understood (maintaining a comprehensive understanding of the current/future use and condition of the estate) through engaging with key stakeholders. These 'whole estate solutions' should include whole life costs, soft facilities management costs and utilities costs.

Business Case Development 

• Maintain Navy specific information to enable required reporting.
• Coordinating the creation and development of the Business Case (including Review Note (RN) and Information Note (IN) activity) and other supporting artefacts and keeping these up to date throughout the project life cycle.
• Orchestrate the creation and development of RN and INs in light of changes to the cost, time and scope of any infrastructure project within your area of responsibility.
• Maintain Navy specific information to enable required Reporting.

Stakeholder Management and Risk and Issues 

• Engage with internal Navy stakeholders, positively challenging the Performance, Time, Cost and Risks to ensure project outputs are delivered. This includes representing the Navy Top level Budget interests and promoting innovative solutions.
• Working closely with delivery areas to ensure that project timelines are coherent, realistic and that key milestones are achievable and that dependencies are actively managed. Lead on or support as appropriate, production and delivery of presentations and briefings.
• Assisting in the identification and management of project risks, including mitigation, throughout the project life cycle. You will report issues and recommend corrective action or re-prioritising as appropriate.

Ad-hoc tasks

• Supporting with the programme management office ad-hoc tasks as required. 

Person specification

Essential Experience 

• Working as a member of a large or medium complexity project team or as a specialist or work stream lead for a small, low complexity project.
• Leading a virtual ‘team’ assigned to work from across functional, organisational or geographic boundaries to deliver high quality outputs.
• Experience and/or awareness of preparation, approval, refining and/or update of business cases that justify initiation, investment and/or continuation of change initiatives or projects in terms of benefits, costs and risks.

Desirable Experience:

• Working in or knowledge of the defence or security sector – either through government or industry.
• Demonstrable commitment to learning and using established project management methodologies to enable successful delivery.
• Obtained or working towards one of the following: PRINCE2 Practitioner; Agile Project Management Practitioner; APM Project Management Qualification; PMI Project Management Professional; Leading and Managing Project Workstreams.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £43,080, Ministry of Defence contributes £11,631 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 can apply online via the Civil Service Jobs website by completing the application form before the deadline shown. Apply using the Civil Service Jobs apply button, filling in all required details in all sections. Using the Success Profiles link for information on format and style, ensure you provide evidence for all Behaviours and Experience sections requested in the appropriate competency style.  

Sift Stage 

Candidates will be required to complete an online CV template to include job history, full details of education and qualifications and previous experiences and skills. Please also include any relevant responsibilities and achievements.

Candidates will be required to complete a Statement of Suitability/Personal Statement of no more 250 words, providing details relevant to the essential and desirable experience in the job advert. 

The requirements for the role have been benchmarked and these will be used to sift all candidates, with those meeting the minimum requirements invited to interview.  

Feedback will only be provided if you selected for an interview. 

Interview Stage

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

• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together
• Delivering at Pace
• Leadership

Further Information

Candidates who are found to meet an acceptable standard at interview but are not successful in one of the advertised posts may be considered for similar roles within the Business Unit.

You will also be expected to achieve Security Check clearance for this role.

It is anticipated the sift for this role will take place w/c 15th July and interviews w/c 29th July 2024.

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 .

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.

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

Open to UK nationals only.

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.