View Vacancy - Vice Consul Bratislava and Prague (CZE461) - INTERNAL VACANCY

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.
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Consular Roles)
Consular

The main purpose of the job is to provide modern and efficient consular assistance and fee-bearing services to British Nationals in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and to contribute to the delivery of the regional consular business plan and the country business plans including on crisis preparedness.

Roles and Responsibilities

Management for Bratislava

  •  Providing effective leadership, line management, support and guidance to the Pro Consul;
  • Managing the daily workload for the consular section in line with the consular manager’s checklist, improving processes to deliver an efficient service;
  • Profiling and administering consular budget delegated by the Consular Regional Director (CRD) and local consular budget;
  • Liaising with CRD, Consular Regional Operations Manager (CROM), the contact centre in Malaga and consular desk officers in London on operational and policy issues;
  • Representing consular interests in wider Embassy work and ensuring senior staff in the Embassy and regional consular network are briefed on significant consular cases or trends.

Management for Prague

  • Provide statistical returns and reporting throughout the year;
  • Contribute to regional working groups to assess and improve the quality of our services;
  • Cashier duties.

Assistance

  • Bratislava only: Managing the team's provision of consular assistance to British Nationals in Slovakia, ensuring cases are handled in line with consular guidance;
  • Bratislava only: Leading on case management of complex or high profile assistance cases and advising Pro Consul where necessary on routine cases, ensuring all cases are recorded accurately and promptly on case management system;
  • Bratislava only: Managing the processing of Emergency Travel documents and notarial services, ensuring consistent customer service to British Nationals;
  • Provide consular assistance across the full range of casework including complex and high profile assistance cases; visiting prisoners, dealing with people in hospital, victims of crime, distressed British nationals etc.;
  • Monitoring changes in local procedures and practices; ensuring that information and guidance for British nationals reflects any changes and is up to date;
  • Issuing Emergency Travel Documents (ETDs) and notarial and documentary services in line with guidance, keeping abreast of changes to policy.

Outreach & Prevention 

  • Bratislava only: Monitoring trends in case work in order to identify priorities in order to set prevention objectives, oversight of all preventative and outreach initiatives;
  • Planning and delivery of consular preventative initiatives and communication campaigns in line with trends in assistance work, engaging with communication lead at Post, feeding consular messaging through Post social media channels where appropriate;
  • Building networks with useful high level contacts like embassies, local authorities, the police, airlines, charities, British community groups etc. who can help with day-to-day consular work and crisis response.

Crisis

  • Bratislava only: Managing relationship with Consular wardens and ensuring they are acting in line with policy;
  • Preparing for and responding appropriately to football matches and other large-scale events, responding to mass casualty incidents or crises;
  • Ensuring the consular elements of the Crisis Management Plan (CMP) are in place and functional; playing a leading role in Embassy wide crisis preparedness.

  • Previous Consular experience;
  • High level of proficiency in written and spoken English;
  • High level of proficiency in written and spoken Czech;
  • High level of proficiency in written and spoken Slovak;
  • Good knowledge of Microsoft Office applications;
  • Excellent communicator, strong outreach and networking skills;
  • Excellent time management and organisational skills; the ability to work without close supervision;
  • Willingness to travel frequently between Prague and Bratislava, and occasionally within the wider European consular regional network;
  • Willingness to work out of hours at short notice if required;
  • Previous experience in a customer facing role and ability to respond to a wide range of customer needs;
  • Resilience and resistance to trauma; ability to cope with the challenging nature of consular work.
  • Good general knowledge of the administrative system, including the justice system, laws and regulations, and social services in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia would be an advantage;
  • Experience of managing a budget;
  • Line management experience;
  • Experience of developing communications campaigns.
28 September 2017
Executive Officer (EO)
Full-time, Permanent
37,5
Europe, Eastern Europe & Central Asia
Czech Republic
Prague
British Embassy
1
CZK
47,034
1 October 2017

This is a full-time position for a permanent contract, subject to a probation period.

The successful candidate will be subject to professional background check and security clearance. The successful candidate must have pre-existing work authorisation for the Czech Republic in order to apply.

Staff recruited locally by the British Embassy in Czech Republic are subject to Terms and Conditions of Service according to local Czech Republic employment law.

All applicants should have the right to live and work in Czech Republic. The British Embassy does not sponsor for work permits.

Please be advised that Consular positions at the FCO entail dealing with casework in situations that may involve death, detention, rape, assault, post-mortems, prison visits and highly distressed customers. Candidates should therefore have a high level of resilience to trauma.

Please note that the deadline for applications is 23:55 on the day mentioned in the above field “Application deadline”.

We advise you to allow enough time to complete and submit your full application, since only applications completed and submitted before the deadline will be considered.

Please be aware that the deadline for submitting applications is considered to be the time zone for the country where the vacancy has arisen.

FCO does not pay for travel related expense incurred in interviews or accept any financial risk,  including cancelation or reschedule costs.

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.

This opportunity is closed to applications.