Correspondence Officer

Correspondence Officer London, England

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
Full Time London, England 25324 GBP ANNUAL Today
Job description

Details

Reference number

274547

Salary

£25,324
£28,412 (London) or £25,324 (National)

Job grade

Executive Officer

Contract type

Permanent

Business area

Policy Unit and Private Office

Type of role

Operational Delivery

Working pattern

Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time

Number of jobs available

6

Contents

    Location

    About the job

    Benefits

    Things you need to know

    Apply and further information

Location

Bristol, London

About the job

Job summary

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is driving forward the Government’s key priority to level up every part of the United Kingdom, creating opportunity for everyone, regardless of where they live, and putting UK citizens at the heart of our work.

We aim to provide quick and helpful answers to correspondence and parliamentary questions. The Parliamentary and Correspondence teams handle the department’s replies to correspondence and parliamentary questions on behalf of Ministers, and we are looking for eight Parliamentary and Correspondence Officers to oversee and boost our performance. Each role will hold responsibility for a specific sub-team within the unit, working in either Ministerial correspondence, public correspondence or correspondence digital operations.

The role would suit candidates who are looking to develop their communication skills, work closely alongside Ministerial offices, deliver results under pressure, and deepen their knowledge of DLUHC’s customers and the issues they care about.

Job description

Responsibilities could include:

  • Working with policy teams and ministerial offices to draft high quality replies to ministerial and public correspondence.
  • Managing casework to ensure responses are sent within 20 working days.
  • Ensuring that casework is accurately logged, processed, and tracked via our online casework management system.
  • Successfully managing the transfer of correspondence to other departments and managing the contribution or transfer requests received by our department.
  • Supporting the maintenance of our case management system, including the training of users across the department.
  • Opportunities to support and potentially manage small scale digital projects.

Person specification

Successful candidates will be:

  • Confident writers with a keen eye for detail.
  • Proactive and able to manage their time effectively.
  • Able to deliver at pace and manage multiple cases at once.
  • Keen interest in policy developments.
  • Confident in building positive working relationships with a wide range of teams and other Government departments.
Essential criteria:
  • Excellent written English and communication skills, including meticulous grammar, spelling and punctuation.
  • Working knowledge of MS Office systems.
Desirable criteria:
  • An interest in current affairs.
  • Some knowledge of Parliament.

Behaviours

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

  • Communicating and Influencing
  • Managing a Quality Service
  • Delivering at Pace

Benefits

  • Learning and development tailored to your role
  • An environment with flexible working options
  • A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
  • A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

Things you need to know

Selection process details

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

We are for everyone


At DLUHC we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce. We promote equality of opportunity in all aspects of employment and a working environment free from discrimination, harassment, bullying and victimisation.


We would strongly recommend that applicants get in touch with the vacancy manager to find out more information about this role.


We are for everyone


DLUHC want to bring in a diverse workforce at all levels.


Our application system is designed to remove as much bias as possible from the recruitment system – this means that a hiring manager does not know your name, your details, see your whole application in one go (or have your CV at review stage unless stated otherwise).


Your answers are randomised and chunked up. This means that each assessor views sets of responses to questions for example all candidates’ responses to ‘Seeing the Big Picture’ rather than seeing a candidate’s full application. The science behind this is that recruitment can be subject to ordering and fatigue effects and we want to reduce this as much as possible.


Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that each of your answers would be viewed by different assessors.


When writing your application, remember:

  • The assessor won’t be reading your answers sequentially.
  • Do not assume that the same assessors will have read all of your answers.
  • If talking about something in your first answer, make sure that you write the second answer as if you had not written the first (and so on!)


At sift, we will be assessing


Behaviour 1 (lead behaviour) - Managing a Quality Service


Behaviour 2 - Delivering at Pace


Behaviour 3 - Communicating and Influencing


There is a 250 word limit per question.


In the event that we receive a large number of applications, we may conduct an initial sift using the lead behaviour listed in the advert. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment/interview


The interview will be of a blended nature consisting of behaviour, ability, and strength based questions as listed in the advert. The strength based questions will require natural responses from the candidates. Candidates invited to interview will be asked to complete a written exercise, details of which will be released later in the process.


In full the campaign will test the below Success Profile Elements:


Behaviours: (Managing a Quality Service, Delivering at Pace, Communicating and Influencing)

Ability: (Yes)

Strengths: (Yes)


We do not consider direct CV applications to our Recruitment mailbox – you must apply for this role via the application link on Civil Service Jobs

Please note that near miss offers may be made at the lower grade to candidates who do not meet the grade criteria for this campaign.

EO salary

  • The salary for this role is £28,412 (London) or £25,324 (National).
  • For existing civil servants, the usual policy on level transfer and promotion will apply and is non-negotiable.


BENEFITS
:

Transfers across the Civil Service on or after 4 October 2018:
Any move to DLUHC from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

For further information about the benefits available to DLUHC employees, please see the attached Candidate Pack.


GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION:

  • London
  • Bristol


SIFT AND INTERVIEW DATES
:

Sifting is envisaged to take place W/C 10/04/23 with interview dates to be confirmed. All interviews are currently being held remotely via videocall.

RESERVE LIST:

In the event that we identify more appointable candidates than we currently have posts available, we will hold applicant details on a reserve list for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. This may include roles at a lower grade. Candidates placed on a reserve list will be informed of this. Due to the length of time CTC checks can take, our HR Shared Services team will contact reserve list candidates for London based roles to commence CTC checks. Those candidates who do not wish to remain on the reserve list should contact [email protected] to be removed from the reserve list.


CTC (Counter-terrorism Clearance)
:

Important note



Successful candidates for roles based in our 2 Marsham Street building must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check and the process can take up to 8 weeks to complete.

Please note that successful candidates will need to pass the CTC security checks – this requires you to have been resident in the UK for the past 3 years. Please refer to the DLUHC Notes on Security Clearance section of our Candidate Pack for further information on Counter Terrorism Clearance (CTC). Thank you.

Candidates should also note that with effect from 1st August 2018 the department will also check all applicants who are successful at interview, against the Internal Fraud Database (IFD) held by the Cabinet Office. In accordance with the Civil Service Internal Fraud Policy, any applicant who is included on the IFD will be refused employment by DLUHC. Please see the Candidate Pack for further information on the Internal Fraud Database.

Candidate Pack Information

Please see attached Candidate pack for further information.

Before starting your application it’s very important to make sure that you are eligible to apply and meet the Civil Service nationality requirements. All candidates are expected to read the information provided in the DLUHC candidate pack regarding nationality requirements and rules


Internal Fraud Database

The Internal Fraud function of the Fraud, Error, Debt and Grants Function at the Cabinet Office processes details of civil servants who have been dismissed for committing internal fraud, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned. The Cabinet Office receives the details from participating government organisations of civil servants who have been dismissed, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned, for internal fraud. In instances such as this, civil servants are then banned for 5 years from further employment in the civil service. The Cabinet Office then processes this data and discloses a limited dataset back to DLUHC as a participating government organisations. DLUHC then carry out the pre employment checks so as to detect instances where known fraudsters are attempting to reapply for roles in the civil service. In this way, the policy is ensured and the repetition of internal fraud is prevented.

For more information please see- Internal Fraud Register


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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

  • UK nationals
  • nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
  • nationals of the Republic of Ireland
  • nationals from the EU, EEA or Switzerland with settled or pre-settled status or who apply for either status by the deadline of the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
  • relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals working in the Civil Service
  • relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals who have built up the right to work in the Civil Service
  • certain family members of the relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals
Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Apply and further information

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

Recruitment team :

Correspondence Officer
Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

gov.uk/dluhc
Wolverhampton, United Kingdom
Unknown / Non-Applicable
Unknown
Company - Public
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