About the job

Job summary

The AO Administrative Officer role within the Resettlement Payments Team contact and work directly with strategic Migration Partnerships (SMPs), Local Authorities (LAs), Home Office and other Government Departments on payment claims; data matching claims that have been submitted and working with local authorities to work through errors within the claims process. 
 
Administrative Officers also work closely with teams across Resettlement Services to promote understanding of the payment and funding frameworks, supporting local authorities and the wider team with customer engagement, supporting the payment process.

Job description

•    Ensuring that claims meeting the required data matching standards to meet the governments minimum standards for grants.   

•    Proactively supporting the relationships between the Home Office and external stakeholders with questions, the claims process and further support as and when required, working with the (EO) Executive Officer Payment Officer Team  

•    Work with other team members to ensure that the claims meet the service level agreements for our customers.   

•    Support other internal stakeholders with payments questions and queries, working with the (EO) Payment Officer Team 

•    Proactively support the Senior Management team with local authority workshops. 

•    Become a subject matter expert with your specific geographical regions within resettlement payments. 

•    Champion the Home Office values within the team of being collaborative, courageous, respectful and compassionate.   

Please Note: During initial training, candidates will be required to attend an office location. Hybrid working will not be available. This is due to the specialist nature of the role and team; training is face to face. Training is subject to individual need and requirements. Therefore, office attendance will be required until completed and you are able to work independently.    

Available to part time workers – minimum 24 hours a week/3 days a week.

Person specification

•    Ensure that data matching of payment claims from Local Authorities is consistent and accurate records maintained across all resettlement payments funding streams. 

•    Checking the accuracy of payment claims made by local authorities by data matching against Home Office records. 

•    Casework support including liaising with internal and external stakeholders (as well as dealing with sensitive information and investigation of issues raised).  

•    Quality assure all payments documentation produced prior to them being passed to Finance for authorisation.  

•    Providing administrative support as required in processing claims.  

•    Providing a professional customer service to all those who use the services provided by the team, and this will include both written and verbal communications.  

•    Proactively support and manage email inboxes – ensuring all received emails are acted upon timeously and appropriately 

•    Providing support to caseworkers and managers to ensure strict deadlines are met. 

•    Proactively work with the workflow manager to ensure a sufficient workload. 

Essential Criteria

•    Experience of working in a grants payment setting or financial setting business function. 

•    Having excellent communication skills across several different communication channels including telephone, email and MS teams.  

•    The ability to multi-task, be flexible, manage a varied workload, prioritise effectively, and react quickly and calmly to changing circumstances.  

•    Ability to work under pressure with minimal supervision, 

•    A strong working knowledge and experience of using Microsoft products and a confident user of excel. 

•    Experience of working across an organisation to support department outcomes. 

Desirable Criteria

•    Previous Experience with working in a government grant setting.  

•    Understanding and/or practical knowledge of Refugee Resettlement and/or Asylum systems.  

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, Ability 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 first be asked to confirm your eligibility by providing some basic personal information. 

After completion of the first part of your application you will be invited to complete a Civil Service Verbal Reasoning Test and Numeracy test. Please complete the online tests as soon as possible (within 24-48 hours is recommended), the closing date for the tests and full application form is 23:55 on 3rd July 2024. If you fail to complete the online tests or full application before the deadline, your application will be withdrawn.

Guidance for the test will be available when you are invited to take the tests. The tests are administered online and accessed via the Civil Service Jobs website.  

You CANNOT complete the test on a mobile phone or tablet.

The results from the online test are immediate.   If you successfully pass this test, you will then be invited to complete the full application form which will include:

•    Statement of Suitability (Personal Statement, maximum 500 words)
•    Provide evidence of the behaviour Making Effective Decisions-250 words maximum)

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

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

Sift

The sift will be held on the behaviour Making Effective Decisions and the statement of suitability (personal statement).  

The sift will be completed initially on the Statement of Suitability (Personal Statement).

The Statement of Suitability (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 Making Effective Decisions scored and will therefore receive sift scores for both of these elements. Candidates who fail to meet the minimum pass score for the Personal Statement will not have their lead behaviour scored and will therefore only receive a sift score for their Personal Statement.

Interview

Candidates who progress to interview will be assessed using behaviour-based questions on all listed Behaviours.

Sift and Interview dates

Sift is expected to take place week commencing 8th July 2024.

Interviews are expected to take place week commencing 29th July 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 and generating of examples/answers from internet sources including Artificial Intelligence. If any is detected the application may be withdrawn from the process. Further action, including disciplinary action, may be considered in such cases involving civil servants. 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.

Please ensure your profile on the CS Jobs portal is up to date and reflects your current status as a Civil Servant. Inaccurate or out of date details will impact the onboarding process and may delay your start date if you’re successful.

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.

We can accommodate a part-time working pattern; you must however be able to commit to 3 full days / 24hrs per week.

For more information about working for the Home Office, please visit Home Office Careers website.

A reserve list of successful candidates will be kept for 12 months. Should another role or similar role become available within that period you may be offered this position. 

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.

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.

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.