About the job

Job summary

The Civil Service embraces equality, diversity, and inclusion. At HSE, your personal qualities are as important as your professional experience. We welcome applications from all backgrounds and all walks of life.

Our approach is to recruit “on merit on the basis of fair and open competition”, in line with the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. As such, our thorough selection process ensures that you and every other candidate receive equal and fair treatment.

HSE has an ambitious roadmap of transformation to deliver. We are leading on a number of cross government, multi-agency programmes in addition to a series of internal transformational initiatives:  from establishing a new Building Safety Regulator to a post EU exit Chemicals regulation regime. We’re designing new digital services to transform the way we deliver services and regulate, enabling new operating models, and transitioning to agile methods of development and delivery.

The role of the HSE Portfolio Management Office is to support the organisation to derive the most value possible from the changes it makes by ensuring it does the right things and does them right. It ensures the Portfolio is aligned to the strategy, suitable Governance is in place to facilitate effective decision making, provides projects with best practice frameworks and processes and provides Assurance that projects are being managed effectively and in line with HSE Standards.

Job description

In this exciting role, you will support our Portfolio Management Office by providing administrative and secretarial support to the Portfolio Management Office team.

This is a fantastic opportunity for someone that has solid administrative skills, is organised, can take ownership of tasks and is keen to develop in the world of project and portfolio management.

As part of the PMO Team your main duties will be:

• Organise and attend governance meetings to provide accurate and timely written records of minutes, actions and decisions for distribution to meeting attendees
• Plan and organise workshops, events and away days (supported and mentored by more senior staff), including checking availability of required attendees, booking meeting rooms and facilities, and distributing associated papers in advance and after meetings
• Communicating across the Division to prompt and gather information
• Maintain portfolio documentation whilst adhering to version control and assist with making revisions to templates, standard documentation and frameworks
• Monitor the PMO mailbox and ensure that queries received are answered in a timely manner - including referral of queries to other team members as needed
• Assist with revisions of the PMO SharePoint site and ensure it is populated with the most up to date tools and templates
• Involvement in wider PMO or Portfolio initiatives, e.g., involvement in working groups and activities to support the continuous development and improvement of work processes
• Supporting and delivering elements of team training and PMO inductions for new PMO team members
• Provide ad hoc support (e.g., arranging travel and stationery)
• Other Duties - To deliver services effectively, a degree of flexibility is required, and the post holder may be required to perform work not specifically referred to above. Such duties, however, should not normally exceed those expected of an employee at that grade.

To support the Benefits Manager, your main duties will be:

• With support and direction, build and maintain a Benefits Management Sharepoint site
• Compile a library of examples and good practice - collating the examples, preparing them,  organising/categorising and uploading them onto Sharepoint
• Organise regular benefit drop-in sessions – manage attendees, session bookings and prepare resources for the sessions.  Disseminate advertising of the sessions
• Organise benefits kick-off meetings with project teams
• Organise, assemble resources, attend and note take at benefit workshops
• Simple tracking of where each project is up to in relation to benefits management
• Capture the benefits reporting arrangements and benefit reviews for each project – diarise and send reminders to ensure these happen.
• Diarise data request and request data for the regular portfolio benefits dashboard

At HSE, we are proud to be able to offer our people the opportunity to work in a hybrid way which combines working from home and the office. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and your allocated office will be your contractual place of work. There will be a requirement to travel to the office for various activities e.g., collaborative working, supporting and training colleagues. If hybrid working is suitable for you and your role, the arrangements will be determined primarily by business need, but personal circumstances and other relevant circumstances will also be taken into account. Therefore, we would encourage candidates to consider if the commute from home to the office is a feasible distance to travel before making an application. Please note that if you are successful, hybrid working will be discussed prior to taking up the post.

There will be a requirement to meet up with the wider team monthly or bi-monthly in a centralised location, so travel will be required on these occasions.

This role does cater to part time hours however at a minimum of 30 hours per week.

Person specification

Experience - Essential

• Excellent organisational skills and the ability to work proactively
• Experience of using excellent communication skills in writing and orally to relay information, including minute taking
• Excellent knowledge of Microsoft Office

Experience - Desirable

• Experience of working in a project or programme or similar environment
• Using Microsoft Office suite to a high standard and spearheading working smarter with modern technologies

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £27,316, Health and Safety Executive contributes £7,375 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, Strengths and Experience.

Application information

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

• A CV that displays your career history, skills, experience and qualifications 
• 750 word Personal Statement based on the essential experience listed within the person specification

Application Guidance

Please access the following link for guidance on how to apply and how to complete a personal statement https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/how-to-apply/

Sift information

The sift is due to take place the week commencing 18th March 2024. You will be assessed on your CV and Personal Statement.

Interview information

  
The interviews are due to be held during the week commencing 25th March 2024. You will be assessed on the behaviours listed in the advert along with a strength based question.
 
Please note the sift and interview dates could be subject to change due to panel availability. 

AI Tools & Platforms

During the application process candidates are allowed to utilise AI (artificial intelligence) platforms and Tools to support them in writing their Behaviours, CV’s and Personal Statements. However, all information submitted must be factually accurate. This includes presenting the ideas and experience of others, or those generated by artificial intelligence, as your own. All presented information will be assessed at the Interview Stage.

Please note that a Reserve List will be held for the period of up to 12 months.

Existing Civil Servants and applicants from accredited NDPBs are eligible to apply but will only be considered on loan basis (Civil Servants) or secondment (accredited NDPBs). Prior agreement to be released on a loan basis must be obtained before commencing the application process. In the case of Civil Servants, the terms of the loan will be agreed between the home and host department and the Civil Servant. This includes grade on return.
 

Sponsorship

This role is not open to application from those who will require sponsorship under the points based system. Should you apply for this role and require sponsorship your application will be rejected, and any provisional offers of employment will be withdrawn.

It is the candidate’s responsibility to ensure they are aware of the terms and conditions they will adopt should they be successful in their application.

For a summary of HSE terms and conditions as part of Civil Service Reform, please see the attached document.

Any move to HSE 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.

HSE is proud to be a part of the Disability Confidence Scheme (DCS). As a Disability Confident employer, we positively welcome applications from disabled people. We are committed to making workplace adjustments to ensure anyone can participate in the recruitment and selection process. We offer a guaranteed interview scheme for all disabled applicants who provide evidence of meeting the minimum requirements necessary for the post.

If, during the application or interview process, you require any assistance due to a disability or a medical condition, please contact us at the email address below to discuss how we can support you.

If successful in securing your role, HSE can provide suitable workplace adjustments to support you throughout your career with HSE. If you have a disability and you need an application form in an alternative format or you would like to know more about our recruitment process, please contact: hr.resourcing-team@hse.gov.uk

Please note, if you are a current civil servant and you are currently undergoing any of the following formal actions your application will not be progressed any further; Formal discipline action, any formal action regarding attendance, poor performance or any restriction of duties as a result of disciplinary action.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. 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.