Press Officer and Press Secretary to the Economic Secretary to the Treasury London
Job description
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Senior Executive Officer
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Contents
Location
About the job
Benefits
Things you need to know
Apply and further information
Location
About the job
Job summary
About HM Treasury
If you’re interested in making a difference to people’s lives across the country, the Treasury is the department for you! We sit at the centre of everything that the Government does and have provided advice on economic policy and decisions that affect the public finances throughout the country’s history. A Treasury career continues to offer an exciting opportunity to be part of the decision making that affects the whole of the UK.
Working at the heart of government, we collaborate with other departments to ensure public money is spent well and to drive strong and sustainable economic growth. Our work ranges from protecting customers through to the regulation of the financial sector, helping to reduce carbon emissions and creating a greener economy, supporting people across the country through the COVID 19 furlough scheme and Plan for Jobs as well as helping first time buyers buy their first home.
HM Treasury is proud of a diverse and inclusive work environment, committed to fairness and the promotion of equality of opportunity for all. We know that having a range of experiences, ways of working and thinking makes us a stronger organisation, better at developing policy that is reflective of the communities we serve. We embrace different views and experiences and value the fresh perspective that people from a variety of circumstances bring to the work we do. We welcome applications from candidates who have not previously worked for the Civil Service, mid- and late-career changers with transferrable skills, people from all backgrounds and circumstances regardless of disability, gender, age ethnicity, LGBT+ identity and socio-economic status.
Job description
Ministerial and Communications
The Ministerial and Communications Group sits at the heart of the Treasury. It provides support to Ministers, through the Ministerial offices; it acts as the external face of the Treasury, through the Press Office and Communications teams; and it is responsible for the management of the department, through its support for the Permanent Secretary, the Treasury Board and the Executive Management Board (EMB), and its ownership of Treasury governance structures. The Group is led by the Permanent Secretary.
The team is high-performing, supportive and fun. We work highly collaboratively across the different aspects of communications (press, digital, events). The roles are high-profile and post-holders are given a large degree of ownership for their projects. The team is a flexible resource, and the post-holder will need be ready to support colleagues during busy periods and as responsibilities can move around to reflect government priorities.
The Communications Team is responsible for all communications conducted by HM Treasury and its Ministers. It works closely with Ministers, special advisors and policy teams to communicate the full range of the Treasury’s work, through traditional and new media channels.
The Treasury is looking for a sharp, collaborative, motivated person to join the Financial Services Desk in the Press Office.
This is an excellent opportunity for someone looking to work close to Ministers at the heart of Government in a Department that is soaked in history.
There has never been a better time to work in Treasury communications. We are helping businesses recover from the pandemic and exploring new opportunities to grow the economy and boost our financial sector.
A successful candidate will be responsible for communicating the Government’s vision for financial services: to be an open, green and technologically advanced sector that is globally competitive and acts in the interests of communities and citizens.
This is a fast-paced and rewarding job, and you will often see your work on the front page of national and regional newspapers, as well as leading broadcast bulletins and online news.
The successful applicant must be hard-working, self-starting and collaborative as well as possessing outstanding news judgement, excellent political antennae and an ability to clearly communicate complex ideas.
The post-holder will be responsible for the Economic Secretary (EST) to the Treasury’s press operation. This will involve:
- Working closely with Special Advisers and No10 to provide a quality service to the Economic Secretary to the Treasury.
- Building and maintaining strong relationships with key journalists and leveraging these relationships to influence and advocate the government’s position effectively.
- Supporting EST visits and media interviews.
- Taking an insight-led approach to communications to ensure we are effectively targeting our message, using modern and innovative methods to reach the right audiences, including working closely with the digital team to deliver our message through HM Treasury social media channels.
- Building strong relationships with policy leads within HM Treasury and across government to develop a solid understanding of policy issues and ensuring that comms handling is embedded into the policy-making process, including in advice to Ministers.
- Taking part in the out of hours duty rota to support the Treasury’s 24/7 media service, for which an allowance will be paid.
Whilst it would be helpful for the candidate to have experience of financial services, this is not essential.
Person specification
Essential Criteria
Required Skills, Experience and Behaviours:
The below criteria will be assessed in your application form:
1. The lead criteria is: Communicating and Influencing - An ability to communicate complex issues in an easily accessible, eye-catching way
If we receive large volumes of applications, we will conduct an initial sift on the lead criteria only, which will usually be a behaviour.
2. Seeing the Big Picture: Excellent judgement, knowledge of the changing media landscape and awareness of the broader political and economic context
3. Delivering at Pace: Ability to work at pace, often to tight deadlines, and oversee and deliver a professional service to ministers, journalists and other stakeholders
Candidate Guidance on Completing your Application Form
Where will we assess success profiles across your application form.
- Behaviours – these will be assessed individually with a 250-word statement per behaviour. The application form will indicate which behaviour is being assessed each time you provide a statement, and we are ideally looking for an example using the below STAR method to demonstrate this behaviour in line with the full criteria stated
All elements of the success profiles will be linked to a defined criterion that demonstrates the behaviour, experience or technical skills. It is beneficial to ensure your answer focuses on the full criteria, and not just the related success profile, to give you the best chance or providing the evidence the panel wants to assess
In your statements, it is best to focus on one example in each section to allow you to provide enough detail in your answer and use all the words you have been allocated. Examples from a range of roles across your application will demonstrate that you have the skills, experience and behaviours we are looking for. We would also advise you to use examples that best meet the criteria, even if it is a few years old
How to Structure your Answer
- Situation – Describe the situation you found yourself in and what happened.
- Task – The Hiring Manager will want to understand what you tried to achieve from the situation that you found yourself in.
- Action – What actions did you take and how did you do it. Make sure to use “I”, not “we” to explain how your actions lead to a result.
- Result – Use facts and statistics to demonstrate the results that your actions produced. Explain whether it was a successful outcome, and if not, what you learned from the experience.
- Please refer to the candidate FAQ document which is a link on the job advert – this will provide you with guidance on completing the application form. Please contact [email protected] if you have any issue accessing this document
- At HM Treasury, to maximise diversity and inclusion within our workforce, we operate a fair, open and anonymous recruitment process. This means that the sift panel will only be able to assess you on the written evidence supplied in your application answers. They will not have access to personal information.
- You may be asked to provide some CV details during your application; however these will NOT be assessed during the process, but will be used to support discussions at interview – please ensure you put all information you would like to be scored against in your behaviour, experience and technical skill statements
- You will be assessed on your skills, experience and behaviours through the online application form. When completing your application form, please outline how you meet the requirements as detailed in the ‘Essential Criteria ‘section of this job description. This will give you the best chance to provide the evidence that the panel wants to assess. More guidance can be found here – completing you application
- If we receive a large number of applications, applications will be assessed initially against the lead criterion alone. You will then be assessed against the other criteria if you have met the minimum score on the first criterion.
- Find out more about how the Civil Service assesses candidates and uses Success Profiles (opens in a new window) to test skills, experience and behaviours in applications and interviews.
- Applications are not reviewed until the closing date has passed. You will be notified of the outcome of your application as soon as the recruitment panel has reviewed all the applications.
SUPPORT TO CANDIDATES
Candidate Guidance Support Session
We will be running an overview of Success Profiles and the STAR approach; top tips for the application and interview process and an opportunity to ask general questions around our recruitment practices. If you would like to join us, then use the link below to join the call at the right time.
04 April 2023 - 12:30-13:15 Click here to join the meeting
Candidate Drop-In Session
We will be running a candidate drop-in session for this role to give you greater insight about the role as well as the chance to learn more about HM Treasury and the recruitment process. If you would like to join us, then use the appropriate link below to join the call at the right time.
Monday 3rd April from 11.30 -12:00hrs Click here to join the meeting
Recruitment Timeline:
Closing date: 10th April 2023
Sift: from 11th April 2023
Interviews: w/c 17/24th April 2023
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Communicating and Influencing
- Seeing the Big Picture
- Delivering at Pace
Benefits
- 25 days’ annual leave (rising to 30 after 5 years), plus 8 public holidays and the King's birthday (unless you have a legacy arrangement as an existing Civil Servant)
- Flexible working patterns (part-time, job-share, condensed hours)
- A Civil Service Pension which provides an attractive pension, benefits for dependants and average employer contributions of 27%
- Onsite restaurant and coffee bar. The London office also offers a gym, showers and prayer room
- Access to a cycle-to-work salary sacrifice scheme, season ticket advances and payroll giving
- Access to a retail discounts and cashback site
- A Rental Deposit Advance Scheme to help meet the total costs of deposits for privately rented homes
- A range of active staff networks, based around interests (e.g. analysts, music society, sports and social club) and diversity (e.g. women in the Treasury, ethnic minority network, LGBT* network, faith and belief network)
Flexible working arrangements:
HM Treasury views flexible working as essential in enabling us to recruit and retain talented people, ensuring that they are able to enjoy a long-lasting career with us. All employees have the right to apply for flexible working and there are a range of options available including; working from home, compressed hours and job sharing. Additionally, we operate flexitime systems, allowing employees to take up to an additional 2 days off each month, providing you work enough hours to meet business need.
We also offer a generous parental and adoption leave package.
At HM Treasury we have an incredibly broad remit; our work touches every citizen of the country. So, it’s important our employees come from the widest possible range of backgrounds, bringing us the widest possible range of perspectives and ways of thinking. We are committed to ensuring that all staff are able to realise their potential and achieve a healthy work-life balance.
Things you need to know
Selection process details
As part of our pre-employment security checks, if you are invited to interview and are not a current HM Treasury member of staff, you will need to bring:
- Proof of identity, e.g. your passport or driver’s license. Documents must be in date and valid.
- Proof of address, e.g. a utility bill or bank statement issued within the past 3 months
- Proof of your National Insurance (NI) number, e.g. letter from DWP confirming your NI number, or P60
- If you do not bring a UK or EU passport, you will need to bring other documentation of your right to work in the UK, e.g. your visa, biometric residence permit or birth certificate.
- If your right to work is granted through the EU Settlement Scheme, alongside you proof of identity you will need to provide either a letter of application or status outcome letter from the Home Office. If you are successful in being appointed to the role you will also be required to provide a Right to Work Share Code
Further details regarding acceptable documents will be provided in the invitation to interview. If you cannot provide in the first instance, the above documentation required for employment checks, at interview, please contact [email protected], If you are offered the role, we will require all documentation, as this is part of the security vetting process. If you do not provide this at interview stage, this may slow down the process and delay your start date.
If your contact details change at any time during the selection process, please ensure you update your Civil Service Jobs Profile.
Eligibility Statement
Individuals appointed to the Treasury Group will be subject to National Security Vetting. To allow for meaningful checks to be carried out applicants will normally need to have lived in the UK for at least 3 out of the past 5 years. A lack of UK residency in itself is not always a bar to security clearance but the Department will need to consider eligibility on a case by case basis using all information that can be obtained following a successful application. 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.
Everyone working with government assets must complete Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) checks.
For many roles, security clearance is also required. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements of the role before they can be appointed. The level of security clearance required for this role is SC https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels/national-security-vetting-clearance-levels#security-check-sc
Please read the Vetting Charter for information on what to expect during the vetting process and what will be expected from you.
Many areas of your life may be explored during your vetting journey, and it is important that every individual, regardless of their background and experiences, should feel comfortable going through this personal process, whilst having confidence that it is fair, proportionate, and inclusive.
These short videos address common concerns and preconceptions which applicants may have about national security vetting.
If you have questions relating to security clearances, please contact [email protected].
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).
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
Working for the Civil Service
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).
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