Temporary Public Sector Administration Role suitable for someone with a secretarial background and a passion for excellent customer service.
Temporary contract till the end of March 2026, or for 7 months from start date to cover maternity leave.
£14.86/hr - 37hrs/week
Passionate about providing excellent customer service? Brook Street are currently recruiting for a Sustainability Support Officer, Executive Officer level, to work for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, DEFRA, based in either Bristol, Newcastle Upon Tyne or York.
Full-time role working 37 hours per week, Monday-Friday, 9 - 5, can be flexible to a certain degree.
Office based for the training, then moving on to 3 days a week in the office. This could increase, as required, for further training or if the business needs dictates.
Possible travel between sites on a few occasions.
No parking on any of the sites.
Location- Lancaster House, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Horizon House, Bristol or Foss House, York
Rate of pay £14.86/hr
Temporary contract till end of March 2026
About The Role:
This role sits within the Defra group Sustainability Centre of Expertise, which provides services across Defra group's 34 organisations. The team provides a range of essential services. This includes Setting, developing, maintaining and overseeing the implementation of the Defra group sustainability strategy.
This role will provide admin support services across the teams ensuring that they are able to react and respond to changes affecting the function quickly and efficiently.
Main responsibilities will include but not be limited to:
Providing business support along with general administration tasksOverseeing financial support, having oversight of purchase orders (POs) and other transactionsRaising purchase order requests with the appropriate team, raise and track progress to completionMaintaining and improving their intranet and Sustainability Hub informationDelivering the secretariat service to several cross-Defra and cross-Government forums, such as the Sustainability Leadership Group and the Government Chief Sustainability Officers' Group. Creating agendas and pulling the items togetherArranging meetings, minute taking, summarising of the meetings and dealing with the action pointsCollection and analysing of dataSome travel to other sites possible, once every 3 to 4 monthsUnder the government's transparency agenda, prepare various transparency data sets for first review and liaise with stakeholders and customers to resolve any queries and discrepancies, ready for publication on GOV.UKMonitoring team mailboxes and calendars as well as allocate queries appropriatelyProviding limited Personal Assistant support to the Head of Sustainability Culture and Reporting teamProviding excellent customer service
Skills Required:
Excellent customer service, confident to operate at all levels and be able to escalate to senior colleagues, where appropriateBe able to work independently and as part of a teamEffective time management, with experience of working to tight deadlinesExcellent written and verbal skillsComputer literate in Microsoft suite applications, such as Excel, Word and PowerPointAttention to detail and use own initiativeData entry and analysis - extracting data from reportsAdministration experience essentialFinancial experience desireable
Full training will given but you must have full working knowledge of Microsoft products, especially Excel.
Candidates applying must be able to pass a clear Basic DBS check and provide proof of Right to Work in the UK. You will also need to provide either reference details and/or evidence for education etc for the last 3 years.
The interviews will take place via Teams and you will be expected to demonstrate how your skills match those required and answer one or two competency-based questions, see behaviours below.
Behaviours
Seeing the Big PictureCommunicating and InfluencingManaging a Quality ServiceWorking Together
So, if you are looking for a glimpse into the world of the Public Sector, then this could be the opportunity for you.
Please apply online with your current CV in WORD format. Due to the high number of applications we receive it may not be possible to respond to all applications
Brook Street is proud to support the Armed Forces Covenant and as such, we guarantee to interview all candidates who are veterans or spouses/partners of military personnel, and who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy.
As a Disability Confident Leader, and holder of the Gold Award status from the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme, Brook Street, as a supplier to the Public Sector Resourcing Framework (PSR), will offer you a guaranteed interview with a PSR Sourcer.
Should you identify as a candidate with a disability and/or as a veteran or spouse/partner of military personnel and meet all the essential criteria for the role, we encourage you to reach out to us via the Brook Street website. Here you will find a link to register your interest and state the role that you are interested in. We are committed to engaging with you.
In cases where we have a high volume of ex-military candidates/military spouses/partners, who meet all of the essential criteria, Brook Street will interview the best candidates from within that group.