AUS (Perth) - Consular Services Officer, AO (Part-Time)

View Vacancy - AUS (Perth) - Consular Services Officer, AO (Part-Time)

The British Government is an inclusive and diversity-friendly employer. We value difference, promote equality and challenge discrimination, enhancing our organisational capability. We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds. We do not discriminate on the basis of disability, race, colour, ethnicity, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, age, veteran status or other category protected by law. We promote family-friendly flexible working opportunities, where operational and security needs allow.

Job Category Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Consular Roles)

Job Subcategory Consular

Job Description (Roles and Responsibilities)

Main purpose of job:

As a member of the Consular Team in Perth, you will provide high quality consular services to British nationals visiting or residing throughout Western Australia in line with our public guide: Support for British nationals abroad. 

You will work in an immediate team of 3 caseworkers to independently manage a range of consular assistance cases. You will report directly to the Consular Manager WA located at the British Consulate-General in Perth who will support you to deliver consular work and lead on more complex matters requiring escalation. You may also be expected to support consular service delivery in other parts of Australia and/or the Oceania region, where consular work can be complex due to differences in local contexts. 

Consular officers could make a direct difference to people’s lives in challenging circumstances. The job includes dealing with sensitive issues and may involve responding to crises and stressful events. The successful candidate will be working in a fast-paced and complex environment where the ability to work under pressure and with difficult subject matter is vital.

Roles and responsibilities:

Consular assistance service delivery

• Sensitively deliver accurate advice, information and case management services to British nationals and their families (mostly remotely via telephone or email) on a range of issues such as imprisonment and detention; financial hardship and destitution; hospitalisations; supporting bereaved families; missing persons; mental health needs; child custody and other sensitive issues
• Provide occasional face-to-face support, including visiting British nationals in prison, immigration detention facilities, hospitals etc.
• Manage our Emergency Travel Document (ETD) service by printing ETDs, maintaining our collection appointment booking system, occasionally facilitating interviews, and escalating any complex issues to our ETD Centre
• Organise citizenship ceremonies, and occasionally other consular stakeholder or public-facing events
• Respond to customer correspondence in a timely and efficient manner
• Maintain accurate and concise case records on consular case management systems

Partnerships, communication and prevention

•  Assist the team to build and maintain relationships with local authorities, including state and federal government agencies (the Australian Border Force and Corrective Services WA) and non-government organisations to support case management
• Work collaboratively with internal teams, including colleagues and senior leaders in Australia, Oceania, consular casework teams in the UK and the FCDO overseas network
• Participate in team planning and delivery of consular prevention and stakeholder engagement activities
• Monitor changes in local procedures and practices, ensuring that all information and guidance given to British nationals reflects changes and is up to date, e.g. service provider lists, travel advice, web content on GOV.UK

Crisis

• As part of our whole-of-mission approach to crisis, participate in crisis preparation and response duties in the event of a crisis affecting a significant number of British nationals, including crisis events outside of Australia. Although rare, crisis work may involve working beyond your normal remit and outside your contracted hours

The formal job description may be subject to amendment in the future. The consular team in Australia is spread across four locations and 13 people. You may be expected to work flexibly and collaboratively with other team members, sometimes covering for periods of absence or other business needs.

Essential qualifications, skills and experience

• Strong customer service delivery, including sound problem solving skills and the ability to manage customer expectations 
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including communicating with empathy when working with distressed people
• Strong teamwork skills, including working collaboratively and supporting others in a small team environment 
• Strong self-awareness with a high degree of emotional intelligence and personal resilience
• Confident user of Microsoft Office software

Desirable qualifications, skills and experience

• Prior experience working in a consular or similar professional frontline customer service delivery environment
• Prior experience working with vulnerable client groups
• Good understanding of local systems and support organisations in WA and/or the UK

Required behaviours Delivering at Pace, Making Effective Decisions, Managing a Quality Service, Working Together

7 July 2024

Grade Administrative Officer (AO)

Type of Position Permanent, Part-Time

Working hours per week 22.8 net of lunch

Region Asia Pacific

Country/Territory Australia

Location (City) Perth

Type of Post British Consulate General

Number of vacancies 1

Salary Currency AUD

Full-time rate of AUD 75,540 +11% superannuation and annual leave loading (Will be computed on a pro-rata basis based on work hours)

Start Date 26 August 2024

Other benefits and conditions of employment

Appointment is subject to an AFP records check and UK security clearance.

Specific considerations for consular roles:

You should be aware that consular work can involve difficult conversations with distressed individuals. Emotional intelligence and personal resilience are essential. You will be well supported by your line manager, your team and colleagues across the UK in Australia network. You will have access to quarterly wellbeing sessions with a wellbeing supervisor and other wellbeing support resources.

The successful applicant will be expected to maintain absolute consular confidentiality and impartiality, keeping in line with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) Consular Strategy, consular guidance and Customer Charter, business targets and local procedures.

Learning and development opportunities (and any specific training courses to be completed):

You will be joining an enthusiastic and supportive team that takes continuous learning and development seriously and that values a diverse range of skills and backgrounds. When you start the role, you’ll be supported to become familiar with consular policy, as well as the structures of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the operation of the British Consulate-General in Perth and the UK in Australia Network.

Mandatory courses
In your first year, you will be required to complete the following courses:

• Online FCDO learning modules relating to processing Emergency Travel Documents, consular case management and crisis management
• Consular Fundamentals Course (delivered virtually)
• Developing Consular Expertise (face-to-face in the UK)

Further opportunities
When you are settled in the role, you will be supported to seek out further opportunities (both formal and informal) to deepen your expertise of consular work, and to develop wider skills tailored to your personal interests and development needs. 

Working patterns 

• Location: This role must be based at the British Consulate-General in Perth. 
• Working hours: This role is Part Time – 3 days a week. Our core office hours are 09:00-17:00 Monday-Friday. Due to the unplanned nature of some consular work, a flexible approach to working hours and patterns is essential.
• Leave entitlements: Leave will be calculated at 0.6 pro-rata of the annual leave entitlement of 22 days per calendar year plus additional office closures for some UK public holidays.
• Travel: Some travel may be required for regional activities, such as prison visits, providing resilience to other teams, and for training purposes. This may include interstate and/or overseas travel.
• Flexible working: This role may be suitable for some hybrid and/or flexible working patterns, subject to operational demands. The importance of in-person consular services, relationship building, learning and collaboration mean that this role is not suitable for exclusive remote working.

The salary on offer is not negotiable.

The FCDO also operates an agile workforce. To facilitate this, you may be required to undertake other duties from time to time as we may reasonably require.

Additional information

Your application must be submitted before 23:55 AEST-Australian Eastern Standard Time (UTC/ GMT +10) on the day mentioned in the above field “Application deadline”

Applications must include a current CV and kindly omit any personal information such as Name, Contact Details, Birthday and Gender.

All applicants are required to mandatorily fill the online application form completely including the employment and educational details, experience, professional skills and behaviour-based questions. We will be thoroughly reviewing the applications and incomplete form in any respect may not be considered while shortlisting for the next stage.
 
Only shortlisted candidates for interview will be contacted. Interviewees will be assessed on the core behaviours/qualifications listed above. Unsuccessful candidates will be notified via the system in due time. Appointable candidates who were unsuccessful may be placed on a ‘reserve list’. If during the reserve period of 6 months the same or a largely similar role becomes available, that role may be offered to the second or subsequent candidate”.

Advertised start date is provisional and subject to completion of reference and security checks.

Kindly check your application centre or email regularly for any update on the status of your application.

Please be aware that you will only be able to apply to vacancies for Country Based Staff roles with the British Government through this official tal.net site (operated by Oleeo). Jobs may be advertised on third party websites, however our adverts will always link back to the official tal.net site. If you complete and send an application through any other site, we will not receive it.

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