Operational Support Officer

Job summary

The Digital Services Directorate Risk and Assurance team plays a vital role in safeguarding the organisation by managing risk and assurance activities. The team identify and assess risks that could impact objectives, develop frameworks and policies for consistent risk management, and monitor and report risks to senior leaders. The team provides assurance that processes, controls, and compliance measures are effective and are working as intended, while supporting audits and governance activities to maintain accountability and transparency. The team ensures risk and assurance information is accurate and reliable to enable confident decision making, helping the organisation achieve its goals. In this essential role, you'll support the team that safeguards our organisation's ability to produce the statistics that matter most to society. You'll be responsible for operational management activities, gathering management information, coordinating meetings and documentation, and ensuring our risk and assurance processes run smoothly.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social and demographic topics. These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution, and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime, and migration.

Job description

The Operational Support role can have a wide range of responsibilities and will require the ability to support the team leads and wider teams in the day-to-day activities. You will be responsible for administrative tasks, operational management, improvement of processes and ensuring effective running of operational services and delivery.

Key Responsibilities:

• Using software and resources as a management tool to support production of MI and informing key stakeholders.
• Completing and reviewing information, to ensure it follows standard operation procedures.
• Responsible for agenda coordination, meeting schedules and distribution of notes & actions, ensuring the key actions are followed up and monitored through agreed systems.
• Build and maintain good working relationships across forums to provide support.
• Coordination of team shared mailboxes and organising the associated SharePoint sites as a site owner.
• Managing and editing user access for systems and SharePoint.
• Cross checking data and information to ensure work is accurate, query resolution where required.
• Assist with implementation and transition to new systems.
• Taking notes and prepare documentation for ad hoc meetings as required.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

• Experience of leading and motivating teams to deliver high-quality services and achieve performance targets in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong communication and stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to build effective working relationships and collaborate across teams.

• Ability to plan, prioritise and manage workloads effectively, providing clear direction and support to achieve successful outcomes.
• Experience of identifying opportunities for continuous improvement, implementing changes to enhance service delivery, and supporting others through change.
• Ability to use data and insight to inform decisions, maintain data accuracy and security, identify data quality issues, and make timely, evidence-based recommendations.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Changing and Improving
• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £28,138, Office for National Statistics contributes £8,151 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our valued colleagues across the organisation.

Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that our careers site will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.

Inclusion & Accessibility

At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.

As part of our application process, you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process that you need. If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.

If you would like an accessible version of any of the attachments or recruitment documents below or linked to in this advert, please contact the recruitment team who will be happy to assist.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

Visa Sponsorship:

ONS is unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role. Applicants must have a valid right to work in the UK when employment commences. If you are currently in the UK on a time-limited visa, it must have at least 18 months remaining at the point of application.

Right to Work and Nationality Requirements:

To work at ONS, applicants must meet the Civil Service nationality requirements, satisfy UK right to work requirements and, where applicable, meet the relevant security clearance requirements.

If you are unsure whether you meet the appropriate right to work or security clearance eligibility criteria, please refer to the guidance on Gov.uk or contact the recruitment email provided in the advert before applying. Failure to meet these requirements will result in your application being rejected and employment offers being withdrawn.

Applicant Support

Number of Stages: 3 stage process

Stage 1: Ci