Job Description

Temporary Public Sector Administration Role suitable for someone with a financial background

Temporary contract till the middle of September 2026, or for 12 months from start date

£14.86/hr - 37hrs/week

Brook Street are currently recruiting for a Compliance Team member, Executive Officer level, to work for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, DEFRA, based in either Peterborough, Newcastle Upon Tyne or Reading.

Full-time role working 37 hours per week, Monday-Friday, 9 - 5, can be flexible to a certain degree.

Office based for the training, then moving on to 3 days a week in the office. This could increase, as required, for further training or if the business needs dictates.

Possible travel between sites on a few occasions.

No parking on any of the sites.

Location- Lancaster House, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Quay House, Peterborough or Northgate House, Reading
Rate of pay £14.86/hr
Temporary contract till mid-September 2026

About The Role:
This role sits in the Financial Compliance Team delivering compliance activities across a number of entities within the Defra Group. This includes Single Operating Platfrom (SOP) expense claims, Government Procurement Card (GPC) expenditure, as well as against key government framework contracts including train spend and temporary staff costs. Ensuring compliance with internal and external policies eg HMRC tax rules and reporting and HM Treasury's (HMT) Managing Public Money (MPM). It enables identification of cases of potential fraud, error, reputational damage and risk to the business, including risk management of transaction data published under the Government's transparency agenda.

Main responsibilities will include but not be limited to:

- Carrying out compliance audits to agreed targets

• Liaising as required with employees and subject matter experts to investigate and resolve queries
• Provide guidance and instruction to the business area and/or individuals, including Travel and Subsistence (T&S) claims as well as other business expenses
• Managing overpayments and seeking reimbursement
• Ensure the consistent and fair application of the departmental policies within the team's remit
• Respond to queries from Core Defra staff in relation to the travel and subsistence policy and the government procurement card policy
• Identify and report suspicious transactions
• Support staff to complete their expense claims or card reconciliations in an accurate and timely manner
• Support the processing of new procurement card applications
• Making changes to procurement card controls in line with the agreed policy
• Supporting staff to raise requisitions to purchase goods or services
• Providing advice to staff on our Purchase to Pay systems, processes and policies
• Performing assurance checks on supplier maintenance forms
• Support our housekeeping process on invoices, purchase orders, and suppliers
• Under the government's transparency agenda, prepare various transparency data sets for first review and liaise with stakeholders and customers to resolve any queries and discrepancies, ready for publication on GOV.UK
• Monitoring team mailboxes and allocate queries appropriately
  
  
  Skills Required:
• Excellent customer service, confident to operate at all levels and be able to escalate to senior colleagues, where appropriate
• Be able to work independently and as part of a team
• Effective time management, with experience of working to tight deadlines
• Excellent written and verbal skills
• Computer literate in Microsoft suite applications, such as Excel, Word and PowerPoint
• Attention to detail and use own initiative
• Data entry and analysis - extracting data from reports
• Administration experience essential
• Financial experience desireable

Full training will given but you must have full working knowledge of Microsoft products, especially Excel.

Candidates applying must be able to pass a clear Basic DBS check and provide proof of Right to Work in the UK. You will also need to provide either reference details and/or evidence for education etc for the last 3 years.

The interviews will take place via Teams and you will be expected to demonstrate how your skills match those required and answer one or two competency based questions, see behaviours below.

Behaviours

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service
• Working Together

So, if you are looking for a glimpse into the world of the Public Sector, then this could be the opportunity for you.

Please apply online with your current CV in WORD format. Due to the high number of applications we receive it may not be possible to respond to all applications

Brook Street is proud to support the Armed Forces Covenant and as such, we guarantee to interview all candidates who are veterans or spouses/partners of military personnel, and who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy.

As a Disability Confident Leader, and holder of the Gold Award status from the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme, Brook Street, as a supplier to the Public Sector Resourcing Framework (PSR), will offer you a guaranteed interview with a PSR Sourcer.

Should you identify as a candidate with a disability and/or as a veteran or spouse/partner of military personnel and meet all the essential criteria for the role, we encourage you to reach out to us via the Brook Street website. Here you will find a link to register your interest and state the role that you are interested in. We are committed to engaging with you.

In cases where we have a high volume of ex-military candidates/military spouses/partners, who meet all of the essential criteria, Brook Street will interview the best candidates from within that group.