Project Coordinator

Are you a confident and well organised project specialist looking to develop your skills and experience in an organisation that makes a difference to the lives of the people of Scotland? Can you analyse data and communicate key messages in an engaging and accurate manner? Are you proactive with good attention to detail? Do you have good writing skills and an interest in strategy, change and improvement? If so, we can offer you the chance to join our Innovation & Quality team in an exciting new role that directly supports a diverse range of change and improvement projects. The role holder will be expected to agree a base office location (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen or Inverness) and be able to travel to our main offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow as required to attend key meetings.

Overall purpose of the role

Working within our Innovation & Quality team, you'll provide vital support to the delivery of a broad range of projects, including project planning, coordinating project activity and monitoring and reporting on project budgets and progress. You’ll communicate with project stakeholders and directly deliver against key project milestones.

The Innovation & Quality team works across all areas of Audit Scotland to innovate and support, with a focus on elevating our people, our organisation and public audit, to improve quality and grow our reputation​. The Project Coordinator will primarily support change and improvement projects in the organisational improvement and learning and development functions but will also work across the Innovation & Quality team.

This role is a fantastic opportunity to develop your experience, knowledge, and skills across a diverse range of strategy, change and improvement projects.

What you will be doing

As a member of the Innovation & Quality (I&Q) team, you will primarily work across the organisational improvement and learning and development functions. You will undertake research and analysis and provide critical support to projects, using your skills to reach conclusions and suggest areas for improvement. This will include:

• supporting a range of projects, across the project life cycle, planning, monitoring progress and performance, and preparing reports for senior managers that highlight key issues, based on analysis and judgement.
• developing and maintaining productive relationships with colleagues and key project stakeholders.
• contributing to the smooth functioning of key systems and processes within the business, using initiative to suggest new ways of working to enhance and improve processes and systems.
• evaluating queries, information and analysis and using judgement where appropriate to make conclusions and suggest solutions based on evidence.
• conducting research and data analysis using appropriate techniques and presenting findings with clarity.
• collating and analysing information for Audit Scotland’s corporate and business planning processes.
• applying project support experience and professionalism to support colleagues in the successful delivery of their roles.
• proactively sharing information to support the effective running of the business group.
• working closely with colleagues across the business to help ensure key projects are fully supported.

Knowledge and experience

With relevant experience working in a project support or project coordination role, you will have well developed time management and organisational skills and excellent attention to detail. This will include the ability to juggle the demands of coordinating multiple projects with competing deadlines to ensure successful project delivery. You can contribute to project planning and assist colleagues in structuring the best approach for success.

You will bring experience with a range of software packages that can support project management and be proficient with Microsoft Office applications.

You can build and maintain positive relationships with your colleagues, showing empathy and understanding, and being aware of the work and objectives of senior colleagues. You can anticipate the likely impact of projects on their workloads and forward plan appropriately to accommodate this. You know how to work seamlessly within a multi-disciplinary team and collaborate with your colleagues.

You have good writing skills and are confident drafting communications and reports using clear and concise language that is accessible to a range of audiences.

You can use your strong research and analysis skills to monitor project progress and contribute to project delivery. This includes turning your analysis into conclusions for discussion with other members of your team, recognising problems quickly and recommending practical solutions, using your professional judgement.

Person specification - specific knowledge and experience

Essential:

• You have demonstrable experience working in a project support, project coordination, project administration or business support role.
• You are proficient in using Microsoft Office 365, and Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams in particular.
• You are data-literate and have developed research and analysis skills, dealing confidently with both quantitative and qualitative data.
• You have good problem-solving skills that can generate effective solutions for audited bodies, stakeholders and colleagues.
• You have good written and verbal communication skills and can contribute to drafting and presenting clear and concise internal communications and reports suitable for a range of audiences.
• You have good time management skills and use initiative to manage a varied workload and conflicting priorities.
• You are capable of building and maintaining effective relationships with people internally and externally, showing empathy and understanding.

Desirable:

• Experience of supporting organisational development, strategic planning and learning and development projects.
• Experience with Agile project management and change management approaches
• Facilitation skills and experience with consultation processes.

Interested? Next steps

Click the apply button to complete an application form. If you wish, you can also share your CV. We offer a range of benefits, please visit our careers page for more information. 

Our application deadline is Sunday 10 November 2024 at midnight.

Interviews will be held on 21, 22 and 25 November 2024.

Audit Scotland

Our vision is that public money is well spent to meet the needs of Scotland's people.

To achieve this, we support the Auditor General for Scotland and the Accounts Commission to provide clear, independent and objective assurance on how effectively public money is being managed and spent. Our work covers about £59bn of public spending, almost 300 public sector accounts, and the services and projects that affect all people and communities in Scotland.

As well as what we do, how we do it is integral to delivering our vision and critical to our wellbeing and our organisational success. We put our organisational values of equality, independence, innovation, integrity and respect at the heart of everything we do.

We employ around 340 staff in a wide variety of roles, working from our main offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and through a network of regional offices across Scotland.

There has never been a more interesting or important time to join us. We offer a rewarding place to work, a supportive and open culture and a wide range of professional development opportunities. Benefits include 42 days of annual leave including public holidays, an attractive local government pension scheme with 17.6% employer contributions, personal development allowances and flexible working hours. We’ve also been named one of the top 25 workplaces in Scotland and the UK’s tenth best accountancy workplace in the 2023 Best Companies awards.

Diversity and Inclusion

We value the unique perspective a diverse workforce brings to what we do. Therefore, we’re keen to increase representation in our workforce and support progression of minority ethnic groups. We are also a proud disability confident employer.

Reasonable Adjustments

Audit Scotland’s recruitment process may include various stages and activities including application forms, online assessments, and interviews, to assess whether you meet the requirements of the role.

As a Disability Confident employer, we are committed to providing inclusive and accessible recruitment where everyone is supported to perform at their best.

When applying for a job with Audit Scotland, you will be asked in the application form if you need an adjustment at any stage of the recruitment process. Please include the reason you require an adjustment and details of what adjustment/s might help.

Some examples of adjustments that have been given to candidates include changing the time, location or format of interviews and providing additional time in any assessments and interviews. This is not an exhaustive list, and we will consider any adjustments that you might need.

As part of our commitment to equality and diversity, our equality network groups would be delighted to offer an insight into Audit Scotland’s culture of inclusivity. If you consider yourself to have a visible or hidden disability and wish to hear more about life at Audit Scotland or wish to speak with someone about the possibility of any adjustments, please contact Careers@audit-scotland.gov.uk or call 0131 625 1500 for further information and a member of the HR team will be in touch.

How we work

We employ around 340 staff in a wide variety of roles. They work flexibly at home and in the office as well as from audit sites across Scotland. This isn’t your typical work from home or work from office type job. We’re flexible about working patterns and we’ve transformed how we deliver high-quality public audit. We support you to work in the ways that achieve the best results for you, your team and the business, including your physical location and how you manage your hours. Put simply, we trust you to do your job, and want you to have the ability to have a rewarding work-life balance and best support your individual circumstances, be that childcare, adult carer responsibilities or managing disabilities. This is a hybrid working role and the successful candidate may choose to work from home. The role holder will be expected to agree a base office location (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen or Inverness) and be able to travel to our main offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow as required to attend key meetings.

Other Conditions

Audit Scotland is committed to ensuring that:

• We minimise our impact on the environment in accordance with Government policy affecting public sector organisations.
• We uphold the principles of equality, fairness & diversity.
• We all work within a safe environment and adhere to good standards of health & safety.
• All information is protected and managed appropriately.
• We maintain independence and political neutrality.