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Location
About the job
Job summary
The Home Office has one of the most challenging and critical jobs in Government. The Home Office is the lead government Department for immigration and passports, crime, police, fire, and counter terrorism. These significant issues are at the heart of the agenda of HM Government and intellectually stimulating, often controversial and regularly in the news. The challenges and opportunities the Department faces are significant and rapidly changing in the global environment in which we operate. Strong analytical advice is needed to navigate these challenges, and the Home Office has a reputation for putting analysis at the heart of decision-making.
Part of the Home Office Analysis & Insight directorate, the Performance Reporting & Analysis Unit (PRAU) provides reporting and analysis of performance for the Migration & Borders Mission and associated operational Capabilities. We support Ministers, the Executive Committee, Policy and Operational leads and other analytical functions with the management information (MI) that they need, as well as producing data for publication and other forms of external release. The Unit also provides advice and support to others in the Department on how to make best use of performance information and is leading on the transformation of MI systems and capabilities.
This post provides an opportunity to work in a fast-paced environment, which is inclusive by instinct, engaging with projects that work across the department to understand and deliver reporting requirements both short and long term, and provides an opportunity to understand first-hand how the different parts of the Home Office, and external bodies use and interact with key performance information. In addition, PRAU along with other areas of the Home Office, are going through a significant and exciting transformation to provide an enhanced MI service to the Department. The transformation encompasses technology and process, meaning that the role will require a degree of flexibility to deliver innovative activities to support and endorse the transformation, in addition to the responsibilities outlined below.
Job description
A Senior Business Analyst will lead small to medium sized projects managing specific epics/high level requirements. You will work on MI Product design, defining and embedding Business Analysis best practice and governance and ensure outcomes are aligned with the service vision and business strategy. You will also be involved in supporting and informing product iteration, evolution and optimisation.
You will build and manage effective stakeholder relationships internally and externally, regularly interacting with other technology deliveries. You will challenge constructively and act as a critical voice to stakeholders, delivery colleagues and customers in order to achieve solutions that are fit for purpose.
Your main day to day responsibilities will be:
- Understanding and defining the problem to be solved and ensuring strategic decision-making supports business outcomes as well as customer needs.
- Investigating operational and business needs and problems to assist in the recommendation of service improvement and MI product development.
- Working with other teams to develop and embed clear and consistent Business Analysis standards, guidance and templates.
- Eliciting, analysing and validating business requirements and customer needs, as well as business strategy problems, in the most appropriate and effective manner and format.
- Planning and leading large areas of Business Analysis delivery in collaboration with wider delivery teams (including other programmes), owning the challenge and driving through to conclusions.
- Supporting PRAU teams with the development of new MI products, from triaging demand of new MI requests, through to determining business requirements and delivery of end-product.
- Helping to build capability in BA methods and tools, ensuring consistency and quality in implementation, and acting as a subject matter expert and key point of contact.
- Modelling processes/procedures using established techniques with understanding of their purpose and importance.
- Contributing towards the development of Business Analysis practice and standards by managing communities-of-interest activities and coaching/mentoring colleagues.
- Supporting business process testing, through development of scenario-based acceptance criteria and BDD (behaviour driven development) to support automated testing.
- Production of periodic performance measures to inform stakeholders and drive discussion around the required service.
Important Information
PRAU is geographically spread across four primary locations (London, Liverpool, and Sheffield and Croydon).
Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. This is a non-contractual arrangement where all employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office, subject to local estates capacity, by Spring 2024. Applicants can request further information regarding how this may work in their team from the Vacancy Holder (see advert for contact details).
Candidates will need to agree a base location of either Croydon, Sheffield or Liverpool with a requirement for periodic attendance at other Home Office locations.
Person specification
Essential criteria
You’ll have a demonstrable passion for Business Analysis, with the following skills or experience in:
- Promoting and building strong relationships with a broad range of people (technical and non-technical), and applying proven communication, and analytical skills to ensure the team’s plans and objectives are achieved.
- Constructively challenging, negotiating and persuading different stakeholders to achieve a consensus in opinion.
- Promoting working as a team, contributing ideas and opinions in a flat non-hierarchical structure and advocating to external people on the team’s behalf.
- Being adaptable in shifting and uncertain environments.
- Communicating in a variety of methods, applying the appropriate methods to each scenario/audience.
Desirable criteria
Ideally you will also have the following skills or some experience in:
- Working in the delivery of technology-based projects.
- Responsibility for developing your own skills by being a connected member of the team and department.
- Promote the importance of evidence-based design or analysis.
- Coaching/mentoring.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
- BCS International Diploma in Business Analysis or equivalent relevant experience.
- Once in role, we will assist you in working towards applying for Recruitment and Retention (RRA) allowance, with the view to becoming a member of the Home Office’s Business Analyst profession.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Managing a Quality Service
- Changing and Improving
- Seeing the Big Picture
We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:
- Managing a Quality Service
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 gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, drives up performance and improves diversity and inclusivity.
As part of the application process, you will first be asked to confirm your eligibility by providing some basic personal information.
After submission of this first stage, you will be invited to complete a Civil Service Numeracy Test. If you successfully pass this test you will then be invited to complete the full application form. Please complete the online test as soon as possible (within 24-48 hours is recommended), the closing date for the test and full application form is 23:55 on 01/04/2024. If you fail to complete the online test or full application before the deadline, your application will be withdrawn.
Guidance will be available when you are invited to take the test. The tests are administered online and accessed via the Civil Service Jobs website.
If successful you will then be asked to submit
- A CV detailing job history/skills
- A Statement of Suitability (Personal Statement) (maximum 750 words)
- Provide evidence of the lead behaviour Managing a Quality Service (250 words maximum)
Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.
Please note that the statement of suitability should be aligned to demonstrate your skills and experience for the role and how you meet the essential criteria as detailed in the job advertisement.
The sift will be held on the behaviour and statement of suitability. The CV is for information purposes only and will not be scored.
However, if a large number of applications are received, the sift will be conducted on the statement of suitability (personal statement) only. The statement of suitability will be scored first for all candidates. Those candidates who achieve the minimum pass score for the statement of suitability, will progress to a further sift where the lead behaviour (Managing a Quality Service) will be scored. These candidates will therefore receive a sift score for both elements.
Candidates who fail to meet the minimum pass score for the statement of suitability will not have their lead behaviour scored and will therefore only receive a sift score for the statement of suitability.
If you are successful at sift stage, you will be invited to an interview which will be behaviour based questions on the behaviours listed within the advert.
Sift and Interview dates
Sift is expected to take place from the 8th April 2024.
Interviews are expected to take place from the 29th April 2024.
We will try to meet the dates set out in the advert, however on occasions these dates may change.
- A laptop (personal or work) with a working webcam
- Good internet connection
- Microsoft Teams
PLEASE NOTE: Due to time constraints we may not be able to offer alternative interview date(s). It is therefore expected that candidates who are successful at sift stage will make themselves available during the above time frame given.
Further Information
For meaningful checks to be carried out, individuals need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. You should normally have been resident in the United Kingdom for the last 3 years if the role requires CTC clearance, 5 years for SC clearance and 10 years for DV. A lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance and applicants should contact the Vacancy Holder/Recruiting Manager listed in the advert for further advice.
For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the following page https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/demystifying-vetting
Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. All applications are screened for plagiarism and copying and generating of examples/answers from internet sources including Artificial Intelligence. If any is detected the application may be withdrawn from the process. Further action, including disciplinary action, may be considered in such cases involving civil servants. Providing false or misleading information would be contrary to the core values of honesty and integrity expected of all Civil Servants.
A reserve list of successful candidates will be kept for 12 months. Should another role become available within that period you may be offered this position.
Every day, Home Office civil servants do brilliant work to develop and deliver policies and services that affect the lives of people across the country and beyond. To do this effectively and fairly, the Home Office is committed to representing modern Britain in all its diversity, and creating a welcoming, inclusive workplace where all our people are able to bring their whole selves to work and perform at their best.
We are flexible, skilled, professional and diverse. We work to recruit and retain disabled staff and area Disability Confident Leader. We are proud to be one of the most ethnically diverse departments in the civil service. We are a Social Mobility Foundation top 75 employer.
New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.
Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening,
subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant's details held on the IFD will be refused employment.
For further information please see the attached notes for candidates which must be read before making an application.
Existing Civil Servants should note that some of the Home Office terms and conditions of employment have changed. It is the candidate’s responsibility to ensure they are aware of the Terms and Conditions they will adopt should they be successful in application and should refer to the notes for candidates for further details.
Transfer Terms: Voluntary.
If you are invited to an interview you will be required to bring a range of documentation for the purposes of establishing identity and to aid any pre-employment checks.
Please see the attached list of Home Office acceptable ID documents.
Any move to the Home Office 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
Reasonable Adjustments
If a person with disabilities is at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.
If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:
- Contact Government Recruitment Service via HOrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs
- Complete the “Assistance Required” section in the “Additional Requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you're deaf, a language service professional
If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the ‘Contact point for applicants’ section.
Feedback
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 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
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).
Apply and further information
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
Recruitment team
Further information
principles, and wish to make a complaint, then you should contact in the first instance
HORecruitment.GRS@cabinetoffice.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response that you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission.
