UK’s prosperity and global market position by promoting stable business conditions through investigating and prosecuting serious and complex fraud, bribery and corruption and money laundering. Our mission is to reduce the harm caused by high level economic crime, and preserve and enhance the reputation of the UK as a safe place to do business. We do that by taking on a selected number of large complex cases for investigation and, where appropriate, prosecution or judicially supervised disposal. We also pursue criminals for recovery of unlawful financial gains. We are unique in that we both investigate and prosecute offenders and have special legal powers to enable us to do this.

Job description

We are looking for an experienced Press Officer to join our growing, multidisciplinary communication team. You will be a proactive self-starter with a sharp news sense, excellent media judgement and demonstrable experience of landing positive stories to further an organisation’s agenda.

We are looking for a team player, someone who can work alongside another Communication Officer (News), reporting to the Communication Manager (News)/Newsdesk lead. Working with the rest of the communication team and our expert lawyers, investigators and intelligence teams, you will help to raise the profile of the SFO’s efforts, to creatively tell our story and maintain a trusted and respected brand.

You will understand the UK media landscape, you will enjoy getting to know journalists and helping to shape their stories. We are also looking for someone with experience of supporting the communication handling of high profile and/or sensitive news stories. You will take part in our out-of-hours News desk rota, for which an allowance is paid.

A relatively small team by Whitehall standards, we all pitch in where necessary meaning we are looking for a fast learner who is keen to become proficient in all areas of communication. Our team is responsible for press and media relations, digital and internal communications and public relations and information.

Responsibilities

• Developing a good understanding of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), its media profile and spotting communication opportunities that further the SFO’s agenda.

• Maintaining professional relationships with national, international, regional and specialist media outlets.

• Providing timely media handling, interview advice and briefing materials to Board members and other senior staff.

• Working to short deadlines to draft press lines in response to journalist queries.

• Working with our lawyer, investigator and intelligence teams to draft interesting, easily-consumable and news-centric press releases that demonstrate the SFO’s unique capability.

• Generating, developing and seeing through ideas for creative and audience-centric digital content.

• Monitoring and evaluating the SFO’s media profile and communication activity.

• Building excellent, professional relationships with all stakeholders both inside and outside the SFO.

• Managing the SFO’s external website, together with the rest of the team.

• Supporting the internal comms team by writing content for internal audiences as appropriate.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Working Together
• Delivering at Pace

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Technical - Government Communications Service (professional competency framework)