Project Support Officer in Workington

Are you ready to play a key role in transforming services for over 250,000 civil servants? Do you thrive on organisation, problem-solving, and making things happen? Want to be at the heart of a programme delivering critical Human Resources (HR), Finance, and Commercial tools? If so, this could be the perfect job for you.

This role represents an exciting opportunity to be at the forefront of change, contributing to the delivery of a programme that will affect over 250,000 civil servants, providing business critical tools in HR, Finance, and Commercial functions. The Synergy programme will develop a Common Operating Model across functions and departments, implement a new technology platform to replace Single Operating Platform (SOP), a new Business Process Service contract to replace the current SSCL (Shared Services Connected Limited) agreement, and stand up a new cluster-level Shared Service Organisation.

The Project Support Officers will enable the smooth running of the programme by supporting the Project Management Office (PMO) or the project managers and programme managers in one of the wider Synergy Team areas, through the operation of project management processes, and the co-ordination of business management actions and activities on their behalf.

This role is aligned to the Project Support Officer 2 standard in the Project Delivery Capability Framework. This Capability Framework is provided as guidance to help you understand the skills and behaviours we value. You do not need to meet all the criteria listed in this document to apply.

If joining the PMO Team precise responsibilities will be flexible, but we expect the post holder will:

• Lead on resourcing for the programme team.
• Monitor resources, write job specifications, complete Eploy forms and assist on other recruitment tasks as needed.
• Support work by managers on resourcing strategy.
• Lead the rollout of timesheet recording by staff across Synergy@Defra and work with Management Accounts colleagues to drive compliance so it aligns for resource forecasts to Synergy Finance team in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
• Develop relationships with the Management Accounting Team, Finance business partners and Central Synergy Finance.
• Line manage the programme team Executive Officer (EO), including supervision of their work on information management, financial administration, management of team contracts, and coordination of workshops and commissions from the central Synergy team.
• Support the team as needed on the production of reports, project plans, and other documentation.
• Secure updates from action owners on risks, issues and commissions.
• Support financial controls by monitoring project spend and contribute to the compilation of budgets and the development of the business case.
• Support the coordination of actions and products for multiple governance forums.
• Contribute as required to other team needs as those emerge.

If joining one of the wider teams – Finance & Commercial / Digital & Data / HR / or Change, precise responsibilities will be flexible, but we expect the post holder will:

• Action tracking/monitoring – Ensuring Synergy functional/change programme actions are captured and effectively managed using appropriately tools i.e. MS planner. This includes keeping team members task oriented to complete activities to deadlines and problem solving to remove blockers as required.
• Monitoring and Reporting – Supporting with reporting on the functional/change Synergy programme and its constituent projects. Prepare performance reports, presenting statistics and key information.
• RAID Management – Supporting the management of Synergy functional/change programme risks, issues, assumptions, and dependencies, working with project managers/programme managers and escalating as appropriate.
• Planning and Scheduling – Supporting with effective planning and scheduling. Working with programme and project teams to review and develop plans for route to green.
• Project Management – Supporting project delivery activities such as business readiness.

Please note this role can be based at any Defra office, where there is capacity. Travel to other sites and overnight stays may be required for meetings or training events.