Job Description

Overview

Temporary Public Sector Senior Administration Role suitable for someone with a financial background and looking for or has leadership experience. Temporary contract till the middle of September 2026, or for 12 months from start date. £17.39/hr - 37hrs/week. Brook Street are currently recruiting for a Compliance Team member, Higher Executive Officer level, to work for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), based in Peterborough, Newcastle Upon Tyne or Reading. This is a full-time role working 37 hours per week, Monday-Friday, 9-5, with some flexibility. Office based for training, then moving to 3 days a week in the office, with potential increase for training or business needs. Possible travel between sites. No parking on any of the sites.

Location options: Lancaster House (Newcastle Upon Tyne), Quay House (Peterborough), or Northgate House (Reading). Rate of pay: £17.39/hr. Temporary contract until mid-September 2026.

Responsibilities

This role sits in the Financial Compliance Team delivering compliance activities across a number of entities within the Defra Group. This includes Single Operating Platform (SOP) expense claims, Government Procurement Card (GPC) expenditure, and expenditure against key government framework contracts including train spend and temporary staff costs. The role ensures compliance with internal and external policies (e.g., HMRC tax rules and reporting, and HM Treasury’s Managing Public Money). It enables identification of potential fraud, error, reputational damage and risk to the business, including risk management of transaction data published under the Government’s transparency agenda.

This role is to support the existing financial compliance team as backfill, enabling multiple team members to undertake process owner and subject matter expert roles across several synergy work streams for Source to Pay, GPC and Expenses. The backfill will ensure business-as-usual services across the group, as well as supporting the Finance P2P priority project for synergy enablement.

Main responsibilities will include but not be limited to:

• Contributing to and implementing compliance activity, focusing on financial compliance, detecting fraud and error, and managing business risk.
• Providing support and guidance on policy and system processes
• Running ad hoc reports requested by the wider business to support HR investigations
• Freedom of Information requests and Management Information reporting
• Data management to support use of audit tool
• Quarterly Fraud and Error reporting on behalf of Environment Agency and Defra
• Supporting Transparency reporting on Government Procurement Card spend over £500 and invoiced spend over £25k
• Managing Invoices on Hold, providing advice and guidance to requisitioners to resolve Invoices on Hold queries
• Review negative balances on account
• Manage inactive cardholder process for Environment Agency and Defra RBS file management for Environment Agency, Defra and Rural Payments Agency, and Covert Card programme
• Supplier set-up approvals
• Liaising with employees and subject matter experts to investigate and resolve queries
• Provide guidance and instruction to the business area and/or individuals, including Travel and Subsistence (T&S) claims as well as other business expenses
• Managing overpayments and seeking reimbursement
• Ensure the consistent and fair application of the departmental policies within the team’s remit
• Respond to queries from Core Defra staff regarding travel and subsistence policy and the government procurement card policy
• Identify and report suspicious transactions
• Support staff to complete their expense claims or card reconciliations in an accurate and timely manner
• Support the processing of new procurement card applications
• Make changes to procurement card controls in line with the agreed policy
• Support staff to raise requisitions to purchase goods or services
• Provide advice to staff on Purchase to Pay systems, processes and policies
• Perform assurance checks on supplier maintenance forms
• Support housekeeping processes on invoices, purchase orders, and suppliers
• Under the government’s transparency agenda, prepare transparency data sets for review and liaise with stakeholders to resolve queries and discrepancies, ready for publication on GOV.UK
• Monitor team mailboxes and allocate queries appropriately

Skills & Qualifications

• Ability to work flexibly and adapt to changing priorities to meet the organisation’s needs
• Ability to build, develop and maintain strong relationships with a wide range of stakeholders
• Collaborative relationships with customers and teams
• Ability to work confidently with information sharing and data, using a systematic approach to recording and storing on a shared system
• Experience of training and supporting others on policies, procedures, practices and techniques
• Experience of using financial and reporting applications and IT packages such as SharePoint and Oracle
• Experience of analysing data sets to inform decision making
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team
• Effective time management with experience of working to tight deadlines
• Excellent written and verbal skills
• Attention to detail and initiative

Full training will be provided, 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 reference details and/or evidence for education for the last 3 years.

Interviews & Behaviours

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. Behaviours assessed include:

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service
• Working Together

Brook Street is proud to support the Armed Forces Covenant and guarantees to interview all candidates who are veterans or spouses/partners of military personnel who meet the essential criteria. We also offer a guaranteed interview with PSR Sourcer for Disability Confident Leader candidates.

If you are a candidate with a disability and/or a veteran or spouse/partner of military personnel and meet the essential criteria, please reach out via the Brook Street website to register your interest and the role you are interested in. We are committed to engaging with you.

Note: We may interview the best candidates from the ex-military group if there is a high volume of applications from that group.