About the job

Job summary

The SFO is a unique law enforcement agency, tackling some of the most serious and organised economic crime nationally and internationally. This is an exciting opportunity as a senior leader to deliver on the Director's priorities including improving partnership working, progressing cases more efficiently and helping develop and increase the agencies proactive capacity and capability.

This role offers the opportunity to enhance and shape a more proactive approach within the SFO's Intelligence Division, with a remit to identify and develop potential cases utilising a range of tactics, both reactive and proactive. 

As a Principal Intelligence Officer, you will have responsibility for developing and sharing intelligence in line with the National Intelligence Model and working with SFO investigation teams as well as external partners to protect the public and UK economy from the threat of serious and complex economic crime. 

As a condition of appointment, the successful candidate must have/obtain SC level clearance before taking up their post and if necessary be prepared to undergo developed vetting.

Job description

As a Principal Intelligence Officer, you will be responsible for:

• Providing advice on covert investigative tactics and opportunities internally and in collaboration with partners, and utilising proactive tactics to develop intelligence operations. 
• Overseeing intelligence collection and case progression for multiple high end and complex offences of fraud, bribery, and corruption.
• Providing leadership and direction to a team of intelligence officers, providing mentoring/coaching, guidance and support in order to maximise their development, efficiency and effectiveness.
• Developing and maintaining processes, intelligence products, and other core intelligence functions to assist decision making, identifying and managing threat, risk and harm, and ensuring compliance with national standards and relevant legislation.
• Collating and validating intelligence, evaluating the reliability of particular sources and the credibility of the information with a view to assisting in the strategic direction of the office. Building up accurate and comprehensive intelligence pictures, which identify potential areas of interest for the SFO, seeking clarification, obtaining more material or making further enquiries where necessary. 

For more information about the role and for a full list of key responsibilities, please see the attached Job Pack.

Person specification

See above and attached Job Pack.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £54,232, Serious Fraud Office contributes £14,642 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.

Application stage

As part of the application process you will be required to provide:

• A statement of no more than 250 words confirming how you meet the Technical criteria as listed on the Job Pack.

This is a lead criterion and will be assessed first. Candidates who do not meet the Technical criteria will not have the remainder of their application considered.

• A personal statement of no more than 750 words that explains how your skills and experience meet each of the essential experience criteria as listed in the Job Pack.

It will not be possible to provide feedback to applicants who are unsuccessful at the application stage.

Interview stage

Behaviours and essential and desirable criteria as outlined in the Job Pack will be tested at interview. 

Full details of the interview process will be made available to shortlisted candidates in the invite to interview.

Sift to take place from 5th March 2024.

Interviews are expected to take place w/c 18th March 2024.

All dates are indicative and subject to change.

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.