HM Treasury
Service Desk Manager
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Darlington (Feethams House)
Job Summary
If you’re interested in making a difference to people’s lives, the Treasury can offer you an exciting opportunity to influence decision making that affects the whole of the UK. Working at the heart of government, we collaborate across government to promote responsible public spending and drive strong and sustainable economic growth.
Our work ranges from protecting customers through the regulation of the financial sector, helping to reduce carbon emissions and creating a greener economy, to promoting British trade around the world and supporting people across the country on jobs, growth and more.
We are part of the Darlington Economic Campus, a cross-government hub bringing people together to tackle key national issues while working closer to the communities we serve.
Job Description
OSCAR is His Majesty’s Online System for Central Accounting and Reporting. It has ~1800 end-users, and they require a proficient service desk facility responsible for prioritising, allocating and resolving all service-related tickets to our other OSCAR suppliers for resolution. This service desk is currently provided by an external service provider, and the post holder would lead the successful transition of that incumbent service to a new in-house team.
This role directs day-to-day functions, making sure users and business teams receive the support required. They deliver excellent customer service and promote user happiness. The role reports to a Senior IT Service Manager and will have line management responsibility of the service desk analysts.
On a typical day you will…
Customer Support and Service Delivery
- Lead the delivery of Service Desk operations, ensuring incidents, service requests and changes are managed effectively in line with agreed service management processes and standards.
- Take overall accountability for the Service Desk's performance, ensuring services meet established service level agreements (SLAs), critical metrics, and business requirements.
- Coordinate the management of major incidents, ensuring seamless collaboration among resolver groups and timely communication with collaborators.
- Ensure effective incident, problem, request, and change management procedures are established, embedding consistent and repeatable processes across the service.
- Maintain operational stability and service continuity by proactively identifying risks, trends and improvement opportunities across the service landscape.
Stakeholder and Customer Relationship Management
- Build and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders, customers, suppliers and delivery teams to ensure a high-quality, user-focused service.
- Act as the primary escalation point for high-impact issues, ensuring stakeholders are appropriately engaged and informed throughout.
- Promote a user-centred approach, using feedback and service insights to shape service delivery and prioritise improvements.
- Represent the Service Desk in governance forums and senior collaborator discussions, providing clear updates on operational efficiency and issues.
- Ensure effective coordination across internal teams and external suppliers to deliver a seamless end-to-end service.
Reporting, Records and Knowledge Management
- Own and ensure the integrity of service management data, including incidents, requests, assets and performance information.
- Define, track and report on service performance metrics, consolidating management information into meaningful insights to support decision-making.
- Ensure effective knowledge management practices are in place, including the creation, maintenance and ongoing improvement of knowledge articles and documentation.
- Use customer feedback, performance data and operational insights to identify service gaps and opportunities for improvement.
- Ensure audit, governance and compliance requirements are met across all Service Desk processes and records.
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Leadership, Resourcing and Continuous Improvement
- Provide overall leadership and management of the Service Desk team, including line management responsibility for Service Desk Analysts.
- Set direction, priorities and objectives for the team, ensuring alignment to wider organisational goals and service requirements.
- Handle workforce planning, rota design and resource allocation to ensure effective service coverage and resilience.
- Establish team capability through coaching, mentoring and development, fostering a high-performing and user focused culture.
- Drive continuous service improvement, identifying, prioritising and implementing efficiencies and improvements across processes, tools and methods of operation.
- Lead the design, transition or evolution of Service Desk services, including defining processes, policies and operating models where required.
Service Strategy, Governance and Supplier Management
- Handle relationships with third-party suppliers and vendors, ensuring services are integrated effectively and deliver value for money.
- Ensure alignment to IT operations frameworks (e.g. ITIL), embedding guideline across incident, problem, change and service management areas.
- Stay informed of industry developments and emerging technologies, finding opportunities to enhance service capability and efficiency.
The Role Will Require Technical Ability:
- Demonstrable understanding of ITIL practices, including incident, problem, change and service level management
- Strong understanding of IT service delivery frameworks and operating models
- Experience using ITSM tools (e.g. Jira Service Management or similar) to handle service performance and operations
- Ability to analyse service data, KPIs and trends to drive performance and inform decision making
- Understanding of supplier management and multi-team service delivery environments
Qualifications:
- SIAM Foundation
If you do not hold the qualification, you should be willing to achieve it within 12 months of joining if successful.
- ITIL v4 (or v5) Foundation (Mandatory)
In your application form, you’ll be asked to confirm that you hold this qualification. You will need to provide evidence of this qualification if you are invited to interview.
Additional Information:
- Our operational hours are Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 18:00. The successful candidate may be required to cover the core rota from time to time. There is a requirement to work flexibly as part of the rota.
- If you would like to speak to the hiring manager informally prior to the closing date, please contact Martin Beale: Martin.beale@hmtreasury.gov.uk
- Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.
Person specification
Application Stage
Required Qualifications
- ITIL v4 (or v5) Foundation
In your application form, you’ll be asked to confirm that you hold this qualification. You will need to provide evidence of this qualification if you are invited to interview.
Application Form
Applications should consist of a CV including your employment history, and a 250-word statement demonstrating evidence of each of the below shortlisting criteria. Your CV and employment history won’t be scored. It’s used to give context to your application and support discussions at interview.
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The panel will review applications and invite those that best demonstrate evidence of the shortlisting criteria below for interview. Please keep this in mind when writing your application.
Please note that only applications submitted through Civil Service Jobs will be accepted.
- Managing a Quality Service: Ability to deliver a high-quality IT support service by setting clear standards, ensuring accurate prioritisation of working and driving consistent outcomes that meet user and business needs.
- Changing and Improving: Ability to pro-actively identify opportunities to improve service delivery, using evidence, insight, and user feedback to challenge inefficiencies and reduce repeat issues.
- Leadership: Demonstrate leadership by setting clear direction and standards for service delivery, supporting colleagues to understand priorities and contribute to share objectives.
- Experience: Experience of leading an IT Service Desk team to deliver a user centric service, focussed on quality and continuous improvement.
The lead criterion is: Managing a Quality Service
If we receive a high volume of applications, we’ll first sift using the lead criterion only. Those meeting the minimum score will then be assessed against all remaining criteria.
Interview Stage
If You Are Successful At The Application Stage, You Will Be Invited To Interview Where You Will Be Assessed Against The Following Criteria:
- Technical Skills: Answers should be aligned with the GDD framework:
- Capability Skill 1 – Customer Service Management
- Capability Skill 2 – IT service reporting
- Capability Skill 3 – Service Focus
- Capability Skill 4 – Continual Service Improvement
- Behaviours: Managing a Quality Service, Changing and Improving, Leadership
Qualifications
- ITIL v4 (or v5) Foundation
In your application form, you’ll be asked to confirm that you hold this qualification. You will need to provide evidence of this qualification if you are invited to interview.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Managing a Quality Service
- Changing and Improving
- Leadership
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Capability Skill 1 – Customer Service Management
- Capability Skill 2 – IT service reporting
- Capability Skill 3 – User Focus
- Capability Skill 4 – Continual Service Improvement
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £43,090, HM Treasury contributes £12,483 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).
- Generous Annual Leave - 25 days (rising to 30 after 5 years), plus public holidays and the King’s birthday.
- Outstanding Pension Scheme - Defined Benefit pension with employer contributions of 28.97%
- Parental Leave Packages - Including 6 months’ occupational pay for maternity/adoption, shared parental leave options.
- Flexible & Hybrid Working - Options include part-time, job-share, compressed hours, flexitime, and hybrid working (where business needs allow).
- Advance Schemes & Discounts - Rental deposit, cycle-to-work, SmartTech, season ticket loans, and access to HM Treasury’s benefits portal for a wide range of discount codes.
You can review HM Treasury’s full offer here.
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