About the job

Job summary

Would you like the opportunity to gain experience, knowledge and develop new skills working for an elite law enforcement agency dedicated to combatting serious and complex fraud, bribery and corruption, within the UK’s Civil Service?

We are looking for a friendly, enthusiastic, and well-organised individual to join our small and dynamic Departmental Security Unit (DSU). The DSU is responsible for enabling the Serious Fraud Office to operate effectively and securely, and is dedicated to providing a high quality and professional security service to SFO staff.

As the Security Administrator, you will complete a variety of administration tasks supporting the DSU function and will be responsible for processing personnel security checks and maintaining security processes.

Job description

As a Security Administrator, you will be responsible for:

• Processing of all pre-employment checks, identifying and highlighting any concerns or issues with identity or immigration, maintaining verification records, granting clearances and referring adverse risk decisions to management as appropriate;
• Processing of National Security Vetting applications and security clearance renewals by registering subjects on the UK National Security Vetting Portal, conducting vetting audits and maintaining accurate records, liaising with other government departments to share clearance information and arranging transfer of clearances;
• Negotiating timescales for clearances to be processed in response to operational need with managers and exercising discretion in relation to sensitive personnel security information;
• Processing the personnel security annual aftercare programme for staff who hold National Security Vetting and taking appropriate action if there are changes in circumstances;
• Management of the DSU mailboxes, prioritising and escalating queries as necessary. Confident in dealing with stakeholders at all levels across the organisation in relation to security issues

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

Person specification

See above and attached Job Pack.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £27,148, Serious Fraud Office contributes £7,330 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.

Application stage

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

• A 250 word example of how you meet the behaviour Managing a Quality Service for the role at the required level.

The behaviour Managing a Quality Service is a lead behaviour; this behaviour will be assessed first and candidates who do not meet the required standard will not have the remainder of their application considered.

• A personal statement of no more than 500 words that explains how your skills and experience meet each of the following essential experience criteria
  • Essential administration skills, including following processes, data entry and records management using Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook
  • Ability to prioritise a busy workload to ensure results are achieved on time whilst ensuring attention to detail and accuracy

• A supporting CV outlining your job history.

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

Interview stage

Behaviours and experience 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 23rd January.

Interviews are expected to take place w/c 5th February.

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.