About the job

Job summary

Strategy Group’s diverse responsibilities support operational delivery across the whole of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). Strategy Group is made up of c.40 staff in five teams working on areas including strategy development, performance, planning, victim and witness care, communications, policy, external engagement, and governance.

You will be part of the team responsible for operational guidance and policy. You will work across the organisation to deliver and maintain a high standard of guidance covering all operational aspects of the SFO’s work in line with our priorities and strategy.

The role provides excellent experience in developing organisation-wide policy and guidance, and the opportunity to work with senior management to deliver important assurances crucial to SFO operational activity.

Job description

As a Senior Operational Guidance and Policy Officer you will be responsible for:

• Leading the development and maintenance of the operational guidance resources. This involves collaborating across the SFO to maintain accessible, accurate, and up-to-date operational guidance and policy that will be used by colleagues across the organisation. Furthermore, the post holder will be responsible for coordinating a new schedule of assurance reporting to the Operations Committee.
• Creating new online content, editing existing online content, archiving material, assisting with responding to requests for historic content, and maintaining strict version control over amendments to content.
• Fulfilling the role of Learning Champion within Strategy Group, implementing the learning and development action plan following the annual Civil Service People Survey, organising learning and development opportunities, and promoting the wide range of opportunities the SFO has to offer. The post holder will act as a single point of contact across Strategy Group for any learning and development related queries, working as part of a wider L&D network.
• Assisting the Operational Guidance and Policy Lead with the continuous improvement capability work when required, including liaising with internal stakeholders, futures thinking and other tasks as requested.

Person specification

See above and attached Job Pack.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £38,264, Serious Fraud Office contributes £10,331 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 stage

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

• 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
• A supporting CV outlining your job history and qualifications

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

Interview stage

Behaviours as outlined in the job pack will be tested at interview. You will also be asked Strengths based questions.

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

Sift to take place from 6th February 2024.

Interviews are expected to take place w/c 12th February 2024.

All dates are indicative and subject to change.

If the vacancy is accepted as a Fixed Term Appointment

For permanent civil servants joining the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) on a Fixed-term Appointment:

Please note if you accept a Fixed-term Appointment with the SFO the preferred option is for you to transfer from your home department on a loan basis to ensure you can return to your home department at the end of the Fixed-term Appointment. Exceptionally, if a transfer on a loan basis cannot be agreed by your home department, you would transfer to the SFO on the basis that you would lose your permanent Civil Service status but retain your continuity of employment. However, if you face a redundancy situation at the end of the Fixed-term Appointment you will be treated as a permanent civil servant for redundancy and redeployment purposes only. You must have two years’ service to be eligible for redundancy benefits under the Civil Service Compensation Scheme.

Therefore you should be aware that when your Fixed-term Appointment at the SFO comes to an end, your employment in the Civil Service will end, unless:

• an extension to your Fixed-term Appointment has been agreed by the SFO.
• a conversion to permanent status has been agreed by the SFO.
• you are successfully redeployed into a suitable alternative post
• you secure another Civil Service post through a recruitment process.

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.