View Vacancy - SH - Visits Support Officer, A2 (L)

The China Network experiences a high number of visits throughout the year from UK Ministers and Government Officials, as well as the Royal Family.

With the elevation of the bilateral relationship to a Global Partnership, the China Network expects an increasing number of High Level Ministerial dialogues and visits in 2017. 2016 has already seen a number of high level  dialogues take place in China and the UK.  We expect stand alone visits from a wide range of Cabinet Ministers, Junior Ministers, members of the Royal Family and Parliamentarians –some of them repeatedly.  At the same time we expect the number of senior Chinese visitors to the UK to continue to rise, including from provincial and municipal leaders, as our outreach network builds stronger relations in support of UK interests. 

The China Network is therefore seeking to create a Visits Task Force.  The primary responsibility of the team will be for visits across the China Network, but they would also be deployable, outside visits, to cover project work in teams. 

The team will be overseen by the Director of Corporate Services for China, however in practice the SRO for each visit or project for which the task force is deployed will take over day to day management.

Visits Officer

The jobholder will support the Visits Officers in preparing logistics preparations for all visits and projects.  Excellent problem solving and judgement skills are essential as the jobholder will frequently need to respond to unforeseen obstacles, including last minute changes to visit programmes.  The jobholder will need to demonstrate a keen attention to detail to ensure consistently high-standards for visits.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Visits management support

Support the organisation and implementation of ministerial and senior-official visits, and support logistics lead for VIP visits, and coordination of ministerial programmes:

• Supporting the preparation and implementation of all logistics and protocol arrangements, including visa invitations; car plans; flight bookings;  VIP airport arrangements; accreditation for events/summits; hotel and venue bookings; interpreters; liaison with venue/Residence staff; budgets and charging instructions;
• Supporting liaisions with the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other government departments to secure host invitation letters; set up meetings; and agreeing protocol and security arrangements; 

Surge support to HMG Network

When not assigned to specific visits the VTF will be deployed as a Project Task Force to teams within the China Network to cover gaps and exceptionally busy periods. 

Strong oral and written skills in English are essential, and a proven track record in report writing and effective oral briefing is highly desirable. 

Proven international experience, ideally in the Chinese context

Strong IT and organisational skills, including Word, Excel, Power Point, Outlook and database management.

A university degree

Chinese language skills to a good level