Main Purpose of the Post

The Private Office at the FSA is a vibrant and exciting hub of activity and the heartbeat of the Agency, across three nations (England, Wales and Northern Ireland).

We play a key role in supporting and facilitating the relationships between the Chair, Chief Executive and Chief Scientific Advisor, with the rest of the Agency, ensuring that things get done in the most effective, efficient and timely way.

As this post is designed to work across the range of Private Office activities, the post holder will provide important support for the entire team, increasing the overall robustness and effectiveness of Private Office.

This will include providing diary management, commission briefings, as well as note taking and other logistical support. However, as with all Government departments, our policies are scrutinised by Parliament, so there will be a specific focus for someone to support our Parliamentary Business and Ministerial Correspondence Manager.

Activities and Responsibilities

Capture the key responsibilities of the role that will have the biggest impact / expect their performance will be measured against. Please remember that experience required, skills or knowledge of the role holder will go in the person specification part.

As the full-time EO, you will be responsible for assisting with:

· The handling of correspondence and commissioning answers to PQs; ensuring response deadlines are met and providing quality assurance in respect of ministerial replies and communications.

· Working closely with officials to produce high quality and timely answers to parliamentary questions on FSA policies and principals' replies to correspondence.

· Oversight of the team's email inboxes to ensure emails are actioned by team members promptly and identifying and allocating urgent cases.

· Issuing cross-Government letters to Ministers in other Government Departments and the Devolved Administrations, tracking responses and working with other Private Office colleagues (across three nations) to ensure that relevant clearances are received.

· Reporting on correspondence and Parliamentary question handling against Departmental targets.

· Managing correspondence cases referred to the FSA from DHSC and Defra, as relevant.

· Learning about parliamentary processes to build resilience within the FSA's Private Office as well as providing feedback on how current processes can be improved.

· Providing extra ad hoc assistance to the Assistant Private Secretaries in diary management, commissioning briefings as well as note taking and other logistical support.

· Working with the rest of the team to answer all queries that come from internal and external stakeholders.

Essential

· Proven experience of using initiative and sound judgement to prioritise and work effectively to tight deadlines

· Proven experience of using excellent interpersonal skills to build and maintain credible working relationships with colleagues

· Proven experience in correspondence management, commissioning lines, checking the accuracy and quality of written replies before they are sent to often tight deadlines