Office for National Statistics
Business Support Manager
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The locations for this role are Newport, Titchfield (Fareham)
This role is aligned to ONS hybrid working principles, which are based on attending the office with purpose. The postholder will be expected to contribute to the organisation’s overall 40% office attendance, in line with business and role requirements.
The induction process for the role will be conducted in person.
Job Summary
This is an exciting opportunity for a skilled Higher Executive Officer to play a key role in supporting senior leadership, driving effective business operations, and improving directorate ways of working.
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.
The Communications and Digital Publishing Directorate helps manage ONS’ reputation bringing together specialist communications, publishing and digital expertise to help ONS deliver its mission, strengthen leadership and employee experience, and ensure our statistics and analysis reach and serve users effectively. We also work on behaviour change activity translating ONS objectives into communications which inspire change – be that encouraging the public to respond to our surveys to encouraging engagement with our statistical tools and products. By integrating planning, insight and resources across the directorate, we ensure communications and publishing work seamlessly together, supporting colleagues, leaders and users with clarity, confidence and impact.
Job Description
As a Business Support Manager, you will work collaboratively with colleagues within the Directorate Business Support team in delivering highly effective business support activities to the director, senior leadership team and wider directorate. How your work is spread across the directorate will depend on its size and structure, and the complexity of some of the key tasks.
There will be an opportunity to join business support communities of practice, working collaboratively with business support colleagues across ONS to develop and share best practice, solve operational issues, and improve processes.
The Business Support Manager plays a key role in supporting senior leadership, enabling effective directorate operations and improving ways of working. The post holder will provide high-quality business support to the Director, Senior Leadership Team and wider directorate, working collaboratively with colleagues and enabling functions across ONS.
Responsibilities:
- Lead and matrix manage SCS Personal Assistants and business support officers, providing guidance to ensure senior leaders are fully supported.
- Build and maintain effective stakeholder relationships across the directorate, group, wider ONS and external partners.
- Coordinate corporate planning, reporting, management information and senior briefings.
- Draft and cascade key communications on behalf of the Senior Leadership Team.
- Maintain corporate registers and ensure outputs are delivered to agreed timescales and quality standards.
- Provide secretariat and coordination support for key directorate meetings, boards, briefings, workshops and resource panels.
- Oversee team inboxes, ensuring requests and enquiries are managed promptly and escalated where needed.
- Support delivery tasks and small projects under the direction of the Senior Business Support Manager or other senior managers.
- Contribute to business support communities of practice, sharing best practice and improving operational processes.
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Person Specification
- Excellent interpersonal skills, both written and verbal, with demonstrable experience of collaborating and engaging effectively with people across the organisation, including at a senior level.
- Demonstrable experience of establishing, building and maintaining strong collaborative and productive relationships across a broad range of customers and / or stakeholders.
- Highly effective organisational skills, with the ability to prioritise and manage multiple tasks concurrently, delegating appropriately to ensure delivery to time and quality.
- Proven ability to work under pressure and at pace, responding flexibly to changing priorities while supporting others to meet tight deadlines.
- Ability to work both independently and as part of a team, including leading others to deliver high quality outputs, taking responsibility for outcomes, with experience in a business support or similar operational role.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Working Together
- Seeing the Big Picture
- Managing a Quality Service
- Communicating and Influencing
Alongside your salary of £34,587, Office for National Statistics contributes £10,019 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.
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:
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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.
Security Clearance:
For ONS the requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for 3 consecutive years immediately prior to applying and the department will consider eligibility by exception on a case-by-case basis. You will be asked to provide information regarding your UK residency during your application, and failure to provide this will result in your application being rejected.
If you are unsure that you meet the eligibility above, please read the information available on Gov.uk on this link or contact the recruitment email on the advert before applying to discuss, as failure to meet the residency requirements will result in your security clearance application being rejected and any offer of employment being withdrawn.
At the point of SC application, you will need to provide or give access to the following evidence:
- Departmental or company records (personnel files, staff reports, sick leave reports and security records)
- UK criminal records covering both spent and unspent criminal records
- Your credit and financial history with a credit reference agency
- Security Services records
Applicant Support
Number of Stages: 3 stage process
- Stage 1: Civil Service Judgement Test
- Stage 2: Application
- Stage 3: Interview
Stage 1 – Civil Service Judgement Test
Upon submission of Part 1 your application form you will be sent an invitation to complete Civil Service Judgement online tests.
There will be full instructions on how to complete each test including an opportunity to practice before undertaking the actual test. These tests are not time limited.
If you pass a test, you will then receive a further invite to complete each subsequent test if there is more than one for this vacancy. If you fail a test your application will not proceed to the next stage.
If you pass all tests for this vacancy, you will be invited to complete the final stage of your application, this is where you will provide information such as your work history. Skills and experience and Personal Statement.
Stage 2 – Application
The assessment process at the application stage will be based on your work history, skills, experience and personal statement. It is important that your application is tailored to highlight the skills, knowledge, and experience relevant to the role.
A personal statement is required at application stage, the maximum word count allowed is 1250, which should not be exceeded. You should provide evidence for each essential skill criterion listed in the person specification. As these criteria are scored, it is advisable to give clear examples for each one, including the impact of your actions, ideally utilising the STAR technique (Situation, Task, Action, Result).
Please note that Success Profiles Behaviour examples are not required at this stage of the application process.
When a high volume of applications are received, the sift pass mark may be adjusted. Candidates will be invited to interview based on their merit order, with those achieving the highest scores being prioritised. Applicants who score below the adjusted pass mark but still pass will be placed on hold and may be invited to interview
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