Senior Internal Audit Manager - Science Capability and Animal Health (SCAH) Programme
Government Internal Audit Agency
Apply before 11:55 pm on Monday 28th October 2024
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Internal Audit
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Location
GIAA has an expectation for all colleagues to attend their local workplace for a minimum of 60% of their working week. This enables all our people to benefit from the positivity and enhanced wellbeing of spending time with colleagues and teammates and to combine this with individual working when this is most beneficial for specific activities. Workplace attendance is usually your local GIAA office location and can also include time spent attending our customers' sites.
For people with a part-time or compressed hours working pattern our expectation for 60% workplace attendance would be applied on a pro-rata basis.
Existing GIAA employees will be allowed to remain in their current location however, they will be expected to work in the offices at Weybridge regularly (at least 1 day a month) and sometimes there will be a need to attend both Weybridge and Defra’s London office more frequently.
Please note, relocation costs will not be reimbursed with this appointment.
About the job
Job summary
About the Government Internal Audit Agency
We are an executive agency of His Majesty’s Treasury (HM Treasury), established in April 2015 to improve the quality of internal audit provided to central government.
Most of the Agency’s people are professionally qualified internal auditors, accountants or investigators.
Many are also specialists in areas including counter fraud, project management, digital and commercial audit.
We lead both the Government Internal Audit Profession and the Government Internal Audit Function.
Our workforce brings with it a unique depth of experience gained in a wide range of government departments, related bodies and other sectors.
This enables us to offer a high-quality service based on cross-government insight and a strong understanding of our customers’ business.
In GIAA, we aim to be a great place to work and to ensure that we have the capability and capacity to make even more of a significant contribution to achieving A Brilliant Civil Service over the coming years.
Our initial focus was on becoming “a single audit practice”. We are now focused on taking GIAA to the next level so we can provide better insights and better outcomes for government.
Job description
As Head of Embedded Assurance for the Science Capability in Animal Health (SCAH) Programme you will be responsible for leading a portfolio of assurance across the SCAH programme and will have a unique opportunity to build an audit function embedded in the heart of one of the Government’s most significant and critical infrastructure projects.
Defra is the UK government department responsible for safeguarding the UK’s natural environment, supporting its world-leading food and farming industry, and sustaining a thriving rural economy. Its broad remit means it plays a major role in people's day-to-day life, from the food they eat, and the air they breathe, to the water they drink.
The SCAH programme is an ambitious, 10–15-year programme working towards safeguarding and future-proofing the UK’s animal health science capability. The programme has recently secured significant funding towards transforming the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s (APHA) Weybridge scientific campus.
This is an exciting opportunity to work on a priority Defra programme on the Government’s Major Projects Portfolio, of significant national importance. This role will reside within the GIAA PPM Specialism, reporting to the Deputy Director, Internal Audit Specialisms, but day-to-day you will be working to the SCAH SRO and the programme’s governance structure to provide the assurance that this complex and ambitious programme needs
The work will be high profile and challenging and you will be expected to work independently and at pace whilst ensuring that customer service standards and expectations are met or exceeded. In this role you will design and lead an assurance plan and will also deliver audit reviews yourself.
An ability to build good relationships with a variety of stakeholders at all levels whilst delivering efficient and robust assurance work is essential for the role.
Responsibilities
- Develop and implement an approach to internal audit assurance for the SCAH programme, which reflects the priorities and risks of the programme and other sources of assurance.
- Engage effectively with senior stakeholders to support the identification and management of key risks and to promote effective governance, risk management, control and assurance arrangements.
- Deliver the overall assurance plan and individual reviews in line with quality, time and budget requirements to support robust assurance opinions and other agreed stakeholder requirements. Lead very high risk or complex audit and assurance assignments and manage external partners, as required, on individual assignments.
- Deliver robust, evidence-based, independent assurance opinions to the clients and programme governance bodies, in accordance with the agreed timetables.
- Lead continuous improvement activities to enhance audit practices, products and customer service. Translate the vision, culture and values of the GIAA into leadership behaviours and action.
- Work productively with colleagues in the Defra internal audit team and the GIAA PPM specialism, to ensure SCAH audits reflect the wider Defra context and GIAA PPM best practice in line with GIAA audit methodology.
- Develop strong relationships with the wider assurance community, including the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, Association of Project Management, and the National Audit Office, to leverage best practice and develop integrated assurance plans.
- Establish and embed means of sharing insights arising from PPM assurance and advisory work with GIAA colleagues and customers.
Person specification
You will be required to write a statement of suitability of up to 1000 words setting out how your skills and experience meet the following criteria:
- Experience of delivery or assurance of change projects and programmes underpinned by a detailed understanding of the challenges and associated governance, risk and control requirements.
- Experience in the key PPM disciplines including: planning; dependency management; stakeholder engagement; reporting; financial management; and benefits realisation.
- Experience of delivery or assurance of projects or programmes underpinned by substantial infrastructure or construction.
- Experience of developing and delivering a risk-based Internal Audit assurance and consultancy programme, including through others, with sound judgment in responding quickly to fast moving priorities across multiple customers.
- Establishing relationships with and taking account of the work of other internal and external assurance providers to ensure maximum value and minimum overlap in providing assurance.
- Demonstrate resilience and tact in the face of challenge from senior staff, including negotiation to overcome such situations.
- Experience of managing individuals and teams, including demonstrable ability to inspire, coaching, challenging and develop future managers / leaders .
- An excellent communicator, with ability to successfully adapt communication approach for different stakeholders and audiences.
Further guidance on how to complete your statement can be found within the application form on Civil Service Jobs
Qualifications
• You will have a relevant specialist PPM qualification (e.g., APM, PRINCE2); or
• You will be able to demonstrate extensive experience in delivering or providing assurance to projects and programmes, including infrastructure programmes.
Desirable Qualification/Experience: Not Essential
• In addition to the mandatory qualifications, candidates will benefit from holding an audit or accountancy qualification at Chartered level.
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Internal Audit
- Programme/ Project Assurance
Benefits
- Competitive salaries and in-year rewards
- Flexible working
- A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
- Discount on big brands
- Volunteering days
- Season Ticket Loan and Cycle to Work Schemes
- Free eyesight tests
- Family-friendly HR policies
- 25 days’ annual leave increasing by one day per year of service to 30 days after 5 years’ service
- Geographically based Agency
Things you need to know
Selection process details
Recruitment Timeline
Closing date: 28 October 2024
Shortlisting: 4 November 2024
Interviews: November 2024
This timeline is indicative and may be subject to change. We will inform you if there is a substantial change to the recruitment timeline.
If your contact details change at any time during the selection process, please ensure you update your Civil Service Jobs profile.
Please note that only applications submitted through Civil Service Jobs will be accepted.
Eligibility Statement
A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role in the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5 year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government. Checks will be performed as part of pre-employment checks in line with this.
Everyone working with government assets must complete Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) checks. Additionally, individuals appointed to the Treasury group will be subject to National Security Vetting. The level of security vetting required for this role is Security Check (SC).
To allow for meaningful checks to be carried out, applicants will need to have lived in the UK for at least 3 out of the past 5 years. In exceptional circumstances, a lack of residency would not be a bar to security clearance however the Department will need to consider eligibility on a case by case basis once the advert closing date has passed.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
Nationality requirements
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).
Diversity and Inclusion
Apply and further information
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name : Katie Woodhouse
- Email : GIAARecruitment@giaa.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email : giaarecruitment@giaa.gov.uk
Further information
