Operational Support Manager

Join the busy Population Statistics Directorate delivering transformation projects while helping teams embed a culture of continuous improvement in the development and production of population statistics. Our work supports and delivers the estimation of the size, geographic distribution and characteristics of the population, including migration, providing vital evidence for policy development, public service planning and decision-making across the UK.

As an operational support manager you will work with a diverse range of stakeholders, coordinating activities across multiple workstreams to ensure successful delivery. You will be responsible for helping to establish policies and procedures, ensuring that working practices including issue management are monitored and documented, making use of available information to inform work and drive performance and improvements to systems / services, and gather metrics for reporting and future improvement opportunities.

This is a unique opportunity to develop your operational support career while contributing to innovative research, development and production activities that will help shape the future of population statistics.

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 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:

• Collate and produce management information whilst reviewing and monitoring value.
• Assisting with the creation and on-going support for Operational Continuity plans and business rhythm documentation.
• Managing agenda coordination, meeting schedules and completion of notes & actions, ensuring the key actions are managed and monitored through agreed systems.
• Record and ensure appropriate management of operational delivery risks.
• Build and maintain good working relationships across forums to provide support to colleagues.
• Managing the inbox and housekeeping of associated SharePoint sites.
• Develop and maintain subject matter expertise where needed of ONS Systems.
• Work collaboratively with teams to enable system and data changes.
• Seek opportunities for continuous improvement of processes and systems.
• Provide monthly MI, giving metrics to ensure performance issues are accounted for.
• Develops and manages issues escalation process, tracking issues through to resolution working with operational teams.

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)

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.

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.

Please note the deadline for the test is the same as the application deadline: Friday 18th September at 23:55pm.

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 at a later date.

Stage 3 – Interview

If invited to interview, you will be assessed using techniques aligned with the Civil Service Success Profiles framework, covering all behaviours listed in the job advert and any required technical skills.

Interviews will be conducted via Microsoft Teams.

Our main locations are Newport (South Wales) and Titchfield.

A reserve list may be held for a period up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made.

Important Dates:

The Sift will be conducted from Tuesday 22nd September

Interviews will be conducted from Wednesday 7th October

Dates are subject to change.

For the full terms and conditions of the post, please see attachment.

Please note that all campaigns may be subject to withdrawal at any stage if the internal resource position changes.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.