Administration Officer

Job summary

What you’ll do…

As an administrative officer you will join the District Admin Team to provide a support service to the wider district. This will include a range of tasks, such as financial admin, managing post, answering email enquiries, greeting visitors, and playing a role in general health and safety compliance.

Please see the job description below for more information and details about what we need from you.

Where you’ll work…

You will be based at Rendlesham Forest (Tangham Outstation) but will provide support for the East District as a whole.

As part of your role, you may be required to travel to Santon Downham Office in Thetford for training or team meetings.

Job description

The Administrative Officer will carry out the following tasks in accordance with Forestry England procedures and policies. This will involve liaising with district colleagues, customers, suppliers, and national office colleagues, whilst always ensuring a high level of customer service:

• Maintenance of complaints system, logging records, allocating issues, escalating and KPI reporting.
• Responding to calls and visitors in a timely manner, addressing issues raised, ensuring guests sign in, and are greeted in a polite and professional manner.
• Management of the general email accounts, providing timely responses and escalations as required.
• Management of the daily post routines.
• Monitoring and distribution of stationary.
• Control of short-term loan systems for assets to include keys.
• Collation of payment card reader reports, for processing by the Finance Team.
• Daily checks and communication with cleaning contractors ensuring a high standard of cleanliness and attention to detail.
• General administrative duties as needed within the Business Administration Support Team.
• Raising Purchase Orders to support the wider district.
• Raising Sundry Invoices to support the wider district.
• Provision of other administrative support and cover to the wider Business Administration team as needed.

Health and Safety

In accordance with Forestry England procedures and policies critical administration of the following Health and Safety functions will also be required:

• Timely diversion of duty phone and promptly dealing with duty phone calls during office hours.
• Timely response and escalation of lone working phone system.
• PPE ordering and recycling.
• Regular MET office fire checks/ FSI, and circulation of outcomes to the duty staff and for general communications.
• Timely updates of the lone working system, for new starters/leavers and other staff changes.
• Monitoring and maintenance of first aid supplies.
• Management of Driving at Work records including reminders to staff.
• Fire Marshall to include arranging fire drills and alarm testing.
• Checking safety equipment, including the fire alarm, extinguishers, defibrillator and emergency lighting, are in good working order and have in date maintenance checks.

General Duties

• Engagement in training, Continuous Professional Development, and compliance with policy updates.
• Attention to Health and Safety obligations for the team and compliance with mandatory training.
• Encouraging process improvement opportunities, collaborative and team working.
• Maintaining a positive outlook.
• Ensure adherence with Forest England procedures and policies.
• Supporting the wider Finance and Business Team during holidays and unplanned absence.

And any other tasks reasonably requested by your line manager.

Person specification

Essential Professional and Technical experience

• Team working and customer centric approach.
• Professional and polite communication style.
• Effective Decision Making.
• Strong Organisational skills.
• Confidence in Microsoft Office.
• Office Administration experience.
• Self-awareness and willingness to develop, together with a drive for continuous improvement.
• Self-driven- This role will be managed remotely.

Desirable Professional and Technical experience

• Prior experience of a similar role.
• Finance Experience.

Qualifications

Essential

• GCSE in Maths and English or functional skills equivalent.

Behaviours

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

• Working Together
• Managing a Quality Service
• Changing and Improving
• Making Effective Decisions

Technical skills

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

• A selection of short tasks to assess your prioritisation, customer service and MS Excel skills.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £26,959, Forestry Commission contributes £7,810 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• 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 employer contribution of 28.97%

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 and Technical skills.

You will be asked to write a 200 word statement on your relevant experience and career history, along with a personal statement of no more than 500 words. You will be assessed on both during sifting. More details about how to apply are listed on the application form.

You will be assessed on behaviours and a technical skill at interview. This will involve a typical question-based panel, in addition to a selection of short tasks to assess your Prioritisation, Customer Service, and Excel skills.

The Behaviours being assessed at interview are –

• Working Together
• Managing a Quality Service
• Changing and Improving
• Making Effective Decisions

Interviews will be held on 20th and 21st April. These dates are subject to change.

Successful candidates will undergo a criminal record check and the government baseline personnel security standard check.

If you require any reasonable adjustments, please email fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk.

If you're planning to use AI to support your application, please ensure you've read our guidelines here first.

Read more about our application process and working with us on the Forestry England website.

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.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

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

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : FC Recruitment Team
• Email : fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk

Further information

Our recruitment process is underpinned by the principle of appointment on the basis of fair and open competition and appointment on merit, as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles.If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with these principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should in the first instance contact FCE by email: englandhr.services@forestryengland.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, you can contact the Civil Service Commission, which regulates all Civil Service recruitment.

Attachments

Forestry England Job Description - Administrative Officer (PB6B) (1) Opens in new window (pdf, 102kB)