Crisis Management and Protective Security Advisor

Job summary

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social and demographic topics.  These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime and migration.

The last few years has seen an extensive overhaul of security and information management to meet the challenges of corporate and statistics transformation in technology, methods and practice, the Digital Economy Act and organisational risk appetite. The capability is evolving and expanding to address changes in threat and business direction.  

Security and Information Management Directorate (SaIM) operates six key services across ONS: security risk advice and management; knowledge and information management (KIM); protective security and business resilience operations; security compliance and audit; cyber security; and Security Culture.  

This role sits in the Physical Security and Business Continuity division within the SaIM directorate. This role reports into the Head of Security and Information Risk (CSO Deputy). 

Job description

The role forms part of the Protective Security & Business Resilience Operations (PSBRO) Team within the Security and Information Management Division.  The post reports to the Business Continuity & Crisis Management Lead, who reports directly to the Protective Security & Business Resilience Operations Principal. 

The primary focus of the role is the development, coordination, delivery and continuous improvement of ONS Crisis Management arrangements, ensuring the organisation maintains effective capabilities to prepare for, respond to, recover from and learn from disruptive incidents and emergencies. The role may evolve to incident management later. 

The role supports the delivery of organisational resilience objectives through the maintenance of crisis management frameworks, governance arrangements, exercising programmes, training activities and assurance processes. 

Whilst Crisis Management forms the core responsibility of the role, the post holder may also provide support to wider PSBRO activities, including Protective Security, Business Continuity and organisational resilience initiatives where operational priorities require. 

The role will work closely with senior leaders, business areas and external partners to ensure that ONS maintains effective response arrangements capable of supporting the delivery of priority statistical outputs during periods of disruption.

Due to the nature of the role, a minimum of 30 hours is required. 

Responsibilities 

• Act as a key advisor on ONS Crisis Management arrangements.

• Support the maintenance and continuous improvement of crisis management policies, frameworks, plans and procedures.

• Coordinate the development, review and testing of Strategic, Tactical and Operational response plans.

• Support the operation of Gold, Silver and Bronze command structures during incidents and emergencies.

• Help Coordinate crisis response activities during organisational disruptions.

• Develop and deliver crisis management exercising programmes, workshops and simulations.

• Support the delivery of crisis management training and awareness activities across ONS.

• Record, monitor and report on lessons identified from exercises, incidents and real-world events.

• Produce briefings, reports and management information for senior leadership teams and governance groups.

• Maintain crisis management governance arrangements and action tracking processes.

• Develop relationships with operational business areas to improve resilience and crisis response capability.

• Support organisational preparedness activities and resilience planning initiatives. 

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

• Experience coordinating activities within complex operational environments, ensuring effective delivery across multiple workstreams.

• Excellent communication, stakeholder engagement and interpersonal skills, with the ability to build productive relationships at all levels.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities, including identifying risks, issues and opportunities for continuous improvement.

• Proven organisational skills, with the ability to manage competing priorities, work independently and remain calm under pressure and uncertainty.

• Experience preparing reports, briefings and management information, supported by proficiency in Microsoft Office applications and collaboration tools.

Behaviours

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

• Communicating and Influencing

• Making Effective Decisions

• Working Together

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £28,138, Office for National Statistics contributes £8,151 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.

The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our valued colleagues across the organisation.

Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that our careers site will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.