26.112 Assurance Manager (Operational Support)

Disclosure & Barring Service

Hybrid

Expires: Expiring in 5 days

Social Care

Full time

£36,444 - £38,165 per year

Job summary

About the Organisation:

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) was established under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 on 1 December 2012, operating from two sites, Liverpool and Darlington.

We provide disclosure functions in England, Wales, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man; and barring functions for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, on behalf of government.

DBS operates within the safeguarding arena alongside our multi agency partners. Safeguarding means protecting people’s health, wellbeing and human rights, and enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect.

We provide services which enable organisations in the public, private and voluntary sectors to make safer recruitment and employment decisions. We do this by providing information to enable them to make decisions whether individuals are unsuitable or unable to undertake certain work, particularly with occupations involving regular contact with vulnerable groups, including children.

DBS has a number of strategic objectives:

We will provide increased reliability, consistency, timeliness, and accessibility of service for our customers, increasing quality and value for public money.
We will drive efficiencies and value for money across DBS and foster a culture of innovation through a modern, stable, secure and accessible technology estate
We will strengthen our reputation as a recognised and trusted provider of public services, and as a source of specialist expertise who actively contributes to safeguarding across the communities we serve.
We will make DBS a modern workplace, with a talented and diverse workforce who are empowered to do their jobs and to fulfil their public duty.

Operational Support (within Operational Services Directorate) consists of four teams: Procedures, Operations Assurance and Excellence (OAE), Fraud Detection and Investigations Team (FDIT) and Data Retention and Migration Team (DRAM).

The work of OAE and Procedures includes:

Data Sharing Agreements;
Operational Services Correspondence Templates;
Internal Audit;
Control of Audit Findings;
ownership and management of all aspects of the Quality Management System (QMS) and maintenance of ISO9001 certification;
control of procedures and guidance and publishing documents for operational use; and
management of systems to provide relevant information to Directorate staff.

As part of DBS’ commitment to continual improvement, an integral piece of our Quality Management System ensures strong links with Continuous Improvement (CI) processes and collaboration with colleagues across all directorates and suppliers.

Job description

Job purpose:

The postholder will report to the Procedures Team Manager, while working collaboratively across OAE and the Procedures Team.

The post holder will be expected to undertake a range of duties across the Teams but will primarily support the procedures and guidance workstreams, whilst being able to provide strength and resilience across all functions of the teams as required. This role within the team also carries line management responsibility.

The post holder will be required to provide support to operational teams within the wider Directorate and its existing suppliers, including but not limited to:

supporting core DBS programmes of work such as LTER and ISO expansion
guidance and procedure creation, maintenance and amendments;
engagement with stakeholder peers;
providing management reports and tailored communications on activity;
supporting continuous improvement activity; and
any other task commensurate with the grade to support wider work of the teams.

The postholder will work with a wide range of existing partners and suppliers, SMEs from across the Directorate and colleagues in other parts of DBS, such as Test Team, the Academy and Change Management and Business Improvement (CMBI).

The postholder will be expected to raise and escalate any issues to their manager in a timely and appropriate manner.

From time to time, there may be a requirement to travel with peers and managers, to meet with internal and external stakeholders to attend workshops and demonstrations.

Person specification

Corporate duties:

The postholder will work across two teams in Operational Support, including:

Reporting and Quality Assurance Activities; including analysing data, providing trend analysis and producing reports to Procedures Team Manager and OAE Senior Assurance Manager on performance against quality assurance measures. Highlight any identified learning to staff in their chain of command and their manager.
Guidance and Procedures: Collaborate with operational staff and subject matter experts to keep guidance and procedures up to date and reflective of best practice.
familiarising and carrying out training in the various elements of OAE and Procedures Team workstreams to support resilience.
Continuous Improvement: Provide operational support to Continuous Improvement activity within the wider Directorate.

undertake all aspects of line management for any assigned staff.
- contributing towards the overall performance of the Teams by undertaking duties related to the nature of the position and commensurate with its level of responsibility; and
- complying with DBS’s equal opportunity policies and procedures, showing an understanding of and commitment to diversity, and how it applies to this role.

You may be required to provide support at times to other workstreams within Operational Support to build and ensure resilience.

Essential Criteria

Ability to produce high-quality written work and reports to immediate line manager, as well as the ability to analyse data and translate information into relevant guidance and procedures.
Advanced communication skills required to challenge when necessary.
Ability to adapt messaging to different audiences and understand audience requirements.
Ability to check your work and that of others to a high standard and provide appropriate feedback and coaching.
Ability to work with and engage peers effectively and positively; building and maintaining relationships with external stakeholders to achieve objectives.
Excellent organisational skills and attention to detail.
Flexible and able to work at pace, managing and prioritising large volumes of work.
Effective management and prioritisation of large and varied workloads.
Able to use initiative, reorganise plans quickly, challenge; and be proactive.
The postholder will need strong skills in MS365 products, including Excel and CoPilot.
Adaptable to change, and be willing to develop knowledge and understanding of new systems, ways of working and technology offerings.
Experience in writing and translating information to produce relevant guidance and procedures.
Strong working knowledge of MS Word / Excel / PowerPoint.
Recognised experience within Operations or Customer Services area within DBS.
Line Management experience.

Desirable criteria

Project Management
Prince2 certification or relevant Project Management experience

Behaviours

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

Managing a Quality Service
Making Effective Decisions
Working Together
Communicating and Influencing
Delivering at Pace

We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:

Managing a Quality Service
Delivering at Pace

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £36,444, Disclosure & Barring Service contributes £10,557 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

The DBS offers a number of excellent benefits for its employees. These can include:

Generous annual leave entitlement
Excellent maternity, paternity and adoption schemes (after a qualifying period)
Commitment to the health and wellbeing of our employees
Employee Assistance Programme
Flexible working opportunities
Eyecare voucher scheme
Occupational Health Service including referrals for counselling and physiotherapy
24/7 Counselling and Wellbeing Service
A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

The DBS vision and purpose is to make people safer by being a visible, trusted and influential organisation, providing an outstanding quality of service to all our customers and partners, where our people understand the important safeguarding contributions they make and feel proud to work here. To do this, the DBS is committed to being an employer that is able to attract, develop, retain and engage diverse talent that is representative of the communities we serve, and to be an organisation providing outstanding service to all our existing and new customers, who are diverse and have a range of different needs. We want all our staff to be able to bring their ‘whole self’ to work.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

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

As part of the recruitment process, the Disclosure & Barring Service will conduct a behaviours sift exercise and interview process.

To apply for this post, please provide a C.V. and suitability statement, of no more than 500 words, outlining how your skills, experience and qualifications meet the requirements of the role, including all essential and desirable criteria, and the key responsibilities. You will also need to provide behaviour examples for the below:

Managing a Quality Service
Delivering at Pace

Please note, the CV will not be marked.

Interview process will consist on examples from the behaviours listed below:

Managing a Quality Service
Delivering at Pace
Making Effective Decisions
Working Together
Communicating and Influencing

A Strength based question will also be asked at interview.

The following timetable outlines indicative dates. Please note, these dates may be subject to change without prior notice.

Interview likely to be held virtually via Microsoft Teams.

Advert closing date: Monday, 17 August 2026 at 10am.

The initial candidate sift is due to take place week commencing 17 August 2026.

Interviews are scheduled to take place across weeks commencing 24 August and 31 August 2026.

Whilst we endeavour to provide some flexibility with regards to dates wherever possible, it is unlikely that we will be able to offer an alternative date once an appointment has been scheduled.

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.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 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

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.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

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Contact point for applicants

Salary range

£36,444 - £38,165 per year