View Vacancy - CSSF Finance and Procurement Officer (GEO21.285)

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 (Policy & Political roles)
CSSF (Conflict, Stability and Security Fund)

The British Embassy in Tbilisi is part of a worldwide network, representing British political, economic and consular interests overseas and we are now looking for a CSSF Finance and Procurement Officer.

The Regional Finance and Procurement Officer position will provide support to the Regional Finance and Procurement Manager to ensure high quality financial and procurement services are provided to deliver the UK’s Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) Eastern Neighbourhood (EN) Programme.  The Programme operates on a hub-and-spoke model, with a “hub” working from the British Embassy Tbilisi supporting project officers and project delivery in Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus and Moldova.  This position will be part of the regional “hub” in Tbilisi.  

The “hub” provides project management expertise to the region, reduces administrative burdens of country teams including the delivery of finance and procurement services and manages regional programming to deliver against country and programme strategic objectives. 

Overall, the Finance and Procurement Officer will provide support to the regional team to: 

  • Deliver an efficient and effective financial and procurement service that complies with FCDO rules and drives a reduction in, and robust management of, financial risk and an increase in the delivery of outcomes as a result of a stronger focus on value-for-money.  

Candidates should be aware that the role is subject to change due to a wider organisational change process.  It is also a new role designed to support the existing team with additional capacity linked to the enhanced workload in the region.  As such it is advertised on a fixed-term, 1 year basis.  While the role may be extended it will be subject to a review during the contract period.  

Main duties and responsibilities: 

Finance Support (55%)

  • Support the Regional Finance and Procurement Manager to manage budgets, ensure accurate profiling and reconcile spend.  This involves data entry on the FCDO’s financial system, reviewing and assessing spend and ensuring accurate forecasts, working with suppliers and the regional team to ensure the compliance of expenditures against FCDO rules and guidance.  Providing management data to the team on finances;
  • Support the Regional Finance and Procurement Manager at different stages of project cycle to identify risks and implement mitigation actions that may include supporting implementers and colleagues to improve the quality of their returns, conducting due diligence assessments on new partners and keeping these under review, and conducting assessments and evaluations on financial returns; 
  • Lead on the registering of project details on the FCDO’s financial system including ensuring the allocation of project codes, creating requisitions and purchase orders, and dealing with pre-payment requests;
  • Lead on the processing of payments, including checking of the invoices and payment requests for compliance, comparing actual figures against forecasts and ensuring that spend is within the budget, escalating issues as necessary;
  • Lead on data management of all financial documents and evidence;
  • Support the team to implement a stronger focus on Value-For-Money and how this can be monitored and evaluated at all stages of the project cycle;
  • Contribute to financial quarterly reporting. 

Procurement and Contractual Support  (25%)

  • Support the Regional Finance and Procurement Manager to deliver quality procurements for new projects including supporting the tendering process, facilitating evaluation panels and record-keeping of decisions.  Lead on smaller procurements including calls for bids.  This will involve ensuring compliance with FCDO procurement rules and working with colleagues and implementers to ensure the quality of our approach;
  • Prepare grant agreements and MoUs in consultation with the relevant stakeholders;
  • Support the Regional Finance and Procurement Manager to check the suppliers’/implementing partners’ activity-based budgets for compliance starting from the design phase throughout the project lifetime;
  • To maintain and regularly update the programme’s “contracts tracker” ensuring milestones and targets are met, supporting the regional team to review contract delivery and ensure compliance with contract terms, throughout the life-time of a contract;
  • To provide cover for the role of the Regional Finance and Procurement Manager during periods of absence and to support the Manager on one-off projects or change processes.

Administrative Support for the Regional Hub (15%)

  • To provide administrative support for the wider Regional Hub team, including arranging events and learning and development opportunities (managing the training budget and plan for the regional team), supporting travel;
  • Data and document manager.  To be the lead data officer, ensuring compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and wider FCDO rules on data management, managing financial and contractual files and record-keeping, ensuring an accurate audit trail of decision-making is retained, and to manage documents on the electronic register.

Wider support to the team (5%)

  • Personal development and wider support to the team’s resilience (including across the region) - as opportunities arise to work on specific projects or tasks of the wider team, to support effective communications, Monitoring and Evaluation of projects, and responses to crisis where there are gaps in capacity.   An opportunity to gain an understanding of project work where the role can be flexed to the development needs of the job-holder;
  • Support to attain professional qualifications in finance and procurement (as required); 
  • Regional travel (as and when the Covid-19 situation allows) is part of the role.  The job-holder will be based in Tbilisi but is expected to be able to travel as needed across the region.   
  • Full professional proficiency in English and Georgian, including excellent writing skills (written and spoken, minimum of C1 level for CEFR framework*);
  • University degree (Business Administration, Economics and relevant areas);
  • At least 3 years of experience in financial, procurement or administrative work;
  • Previous experience of working with, and supporting, project management;
  • Experience of working in an international organisation, civil society;
  • Good analytical skills and service delivery skills;
  • Strong administrative skills and experience of working in a team;
  • Knowledge of excel would be considered as advantage.
  • Previous experience working on peace and reconciliation, stability and security issues relevant to the thematic areas of CSSF delivery; 
  • An interest in developing financial and procurement skills / experience, linked to project management. 
1 August 2021
Administrative Officer (AO)
Full-time, Permanent
40
Europe, Eastern Europe & Central Asia
Georgia
Tbilisi
British Embassy
1
GEL
4,008
1 September 2021

This is a full-time, permanent position, 40 hours per week.

The gross monthly salary is 4,008 GEL (gross). Please note that staff members are responsible for paying any income tax and state pension contributions required by local law.

The successful candidate will be subject to a professional background check and security clearance.

Staff recruited locally by the British Embassy in Tbilisi is subject to local Terms and Conditions of Service.

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

Please note, Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment indicates Level C1 as Mastery or proficiency Level which comprehends that a person can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read; can summarize information from different spoken and written sources, reconstructing arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation; can express themselves spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in the most complex situations. For more information please click on the following link CEFR. Please bear in mind in case you are invited for an interview your languages skills are going to be assessed.

Please be advised 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.

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.