Project Support Officer (Synergy Programme)

at  Department for Work and Pensions

JOB SUMMARY

Do you want to be part of an energetic, innovative team and bring your skills to one of the biggest changes to the administration of the Civil Service in decades? We’re looking for people who are flexible, intuitive and are comfortable taking high levels of volume, speed, and complexity in their stride. A number of exciting new roles have come up in the Synergy Programme, a cross-departmental group formed in response to Government Business Service’s request for individual departments to group together in ‘clusters’ to drive efficiencies, increase buying power and improve the quality of shared service to our end users – our people.
The Synergy Programme is the largest of five departmental clusters, comprising the Ministry of Justice, Department for Work and Pensions, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Home Office and many of their ALBs. The Department of Work and Pensions hosts the Synergy Programme. Your work will impact the procurement, HR and Finance arrangements for the next 15 years, impacting over 50% of all Civil Servants – that’s 230,000 people across the four departments and arm’s length bodies.
Success of the Programme is crucial as Civil Servants rely on shared services to provide business critical tools in human resources, finance, payroll, and procurement. It affects everything we do, from workforce planning, accounting, and budgeting joining a department as a new starter, the way we claim for expenses, how we buy goods and services such as our laptops, canteen provisions and how we make a claim for our expenses, to the way we receive our pensions when we retire.
If you’re someone who can use your experience to streamline procurement to drive out error, waste and duplication we want to hear from you. But most importantly, we’re looking for applications from people who can also demonstrate a passion for our core ambition - delivering a once in a generation, transformed service that Civil Servants will use as a result of the Synergy Programme.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Successful candidates can be expected to be involved in the following:

• Ensure organisational tasks are carried out efficiently.
• Provide secretariat duties including minute taking and programme board support.
• Collaborating with colleagues across the team to review and action Inbox correspondence within stipulated timelines.
• Plan and schedule board meetings ensuring appropriate methodologies are used which align to team and programme priorities.
• Maintaining and updating action and decision logs.
• Supporting a wide range of functions including risk management, planning governance and assurance.
• Draft correspondence.
• Maintenance of a large-scale SharePoint ensuring appropriate access across four departments.
• Manage procurement of supplies and services related to project support within Delegated Financial Authority limits.
• Manage professional relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders, and function as lead point of contact for some external parties.
• Ensure systems are in place to enable effective planning and scheduling.
• Some travel may be required as part of this role.

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)

Administration / Corporate Support
Secretarial