Statistics Industrial Placement 2023

The Welsh Government's recruitment processes are underpinned by the principle of selection for appointment on merit on the basis of fair and open competition as outlined in the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles.

The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

The location in which the vacancy can be based is flexible, subject to the needs of the business. Please note it may not always be possible to accommodate a preference for a specific office location, but requests will be taken into consideration.

Purpose of Post

This advert is for year-long statistics undergraduate placements, to commence in summer 2023. There are four posts available. Please note that this scheme is only open to undergraduate students in their sandwich year at university or to students who, after their second year at university, have opted to take a year out. Graduates should not apply.

The role of Welsh Government statisticians is to support decision-making, resource allocation, research and debate within government and the wider community by providing reliable and efficient statistical services. A wide range of topics are covered by Welsh Government statisticians including education, health, housing, poverty, social justice, industry, the economy, local government, transport, the environment, agriculture, demography and the Welsh language.

Most of our statisticians work together in a central hub of analysts known as Statistical Services Division; however there are also a small number of statistical teams “outbedded” within Welsh Government policy departments.

The general purpose of the role of our statistics placement students is to provide support for Welsh Government’s Knowledge and Analytical Services in respect of statistical needs and projects.

We encourage you to browse our website to understand the work that we do and the types of statistical publications successful applicants may be involved in producing.

Key Tasks

The key tasks will be defined by the specific projects that the successful candidate is required to carry out. Examples will include the following:

• Preparation of statistical reports, drawing out key messages, identifying trends and writing insightful commentary that tells the story with data.
• Development of data visualisations and statistical tables to help illustrate messages in data.
• Answering requests for data and analysis from a variety of internal and external sources.
• Data management and manipulation, including efficient storage of data and automation of statistical processes.
• Data validation and quality assurance of statistical outputs.

Development Opportunities

The successful candidates will obtain a wide experience of statistical work, learning about the environment in which data are managed and statistics are produced. The post-holder will work closely with and be mentored by experienced statistical staff and have access to specific and on-the-job training, for example in respect of desktop IT skills such as MS-Excel, SQL and SAS.

Eligibility

Posts recruited to as part of this recruitment campaign are broadly open to UK nationals, those with right to remain and work in the UK and those that meet the Civil Service Nationality Rules only. Check your eligibility here:

• UK Visas and Immigration - GOV.UK
• Nationality rules – GOV.UK

Prior to appointment, all successful applicants will be required to produce original, acceptable documents as part of the pre-employment checks. If it becomes apparent at a later stage in the process that you aren’t eligible to apply, your application will be withdrawn, or offer retracted.

Competency behaviours required for the role

Competency Behaviour 1

• Communicating and Influencing: Communicate clearly and concisely both orally and in writing.

Competency Behaviour 2

• Working Together: Proactively contribute to the work of the whole team and remain open to taking on new and different roles.

Competency Behaviour 3

• Delivering at Pace: Always work with focus and pace to get the job done on time and to a high standard.

Competency Behaviour 4

• Developing Self and Others: Identify gaps in your skills and knowledge and make plans of how to develop these.

Job Specific Criteria

Job Specific Criteria 1

• Ability to develop and apply knowledge in the analysis and quality assurance of data and the production of statistical outputs.

Job Specific Criteria 2

• A good working knowledge of at least one statistical package or programming language (e.g. MS-Excel, SAS, SPSS, R, VBA, Python, SQL).

Job Specific Criteria 3

• An undergraduate university student studying for a degree in a numerate discipline (such as statistics, mathematics, economics, psychology or geography) whose degree contains a statistical element.

Assessment Process

Please note that this scheme is open to undergraduate students in their sandwich year at university or to students who, after their second year at university have opted to take a year out. Graduates should not apply.

Application Form

In your application, please provide evidence against each of the four civil service behaviours and three job specific criteria stated in this advert (up to a maximum of 300 words per behaviour / criterion):

• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together
• Delivering at Pace
• Developing Self and Others
• Job Specific 1
• Job Specific 2
• Job Specific 3

As a guide, we recommend that you aim to write 250 to 300 words for each. Using the “STAR technique” may help you to structure your evidence. For Job Specific 3, you should state the name of your degree scheme and describe the statistical elements you have studied.

To reduce bias within the application process, we will be sifting candidate evidence without identifiers, so please do not include any information that could identify you within your evidence. This includes your name and the name of the institution where you are studying.

Multiple choice test and sift

Candidates will be required to sit an online numeracy and statistics test on 7/12/2022. Candidates will receive a copy of this multiple choice test via email at 2pm on 7/12/2022 and will have until 3pm (same day) to return their answers to Rebecca.Gillard@gov.wales. It is not expected that candidates need to revise for the test.

The applications of those who successfully pass the multiple choice test, will then be considered by the recruitment panel.

Candidates who need recruitment adjustments (e.g. extra time in the test) are encouraged to contact the recruitment team as early as possible during the application process.

Interview

Those who successfully pass the application sift stage will be invited to an online interview. The online interview will take place over Microsoft Teams. In advance of your interview, you will be given some tables of data to analyse. You will be asked to deliver a five minute presentation on this data at the beginning of your interview.

The interview will then continue with a mixture of technical, situational (what would you do if…?) and past behaviour (can you give me an example of a time when…?) style questions, covering the behaviours and job specific criteria listed in this advert.

The purpose of this undergraduate student placement is to provide the successful candidate with an opportunity to develop their skills in the area of government statistics. As such, one of the required behaviours for this placement has been selected from Level 2 of the Civil Service Success Profiles Behaviours (Communicating and Influencing).

This is the level which offers the successful candidate the opportunity to gain the appropriate experience to support their academic qualifications. The successful candidate will be provided with sufficient support throughout the placement to enable them to gain the necessary skills and behaviours to operate at this higher level in the future.

Other Information

• Unless stated otherwise in ‘actual starting salary’, all candidates will start at the minimum of the pay scale being appointed to (this includes existing civil servants).This is not negotiable.
• Unless stated otherwise in ‘type of opportunity’, this recruitment advert is not open on a Loan or Secondment basis.
• For more information on the eligibility criteria and terms and conditions for Loan and Secondment positions in Welsh Government, please see external recruitment candidate guidance.
• Unless stated otherwise in ‘Location of Post’ the role/s recruited to via this campaign can only be worked in the UK, not overseas.

Other Vacancy Related Information

To help explain the application process and answer any questions you may have about our placement positions, we will be hosting two MS Teams webinars on the following dates:

• 12:00-12:45 on Thursday 24 November
• 12:00-12:45 on Tuesday 29 November

How to Apply

All applications for this vacancy should be made online via the Welsh Government's online application system. If you have an impairment which would prevent you from applying on-line, please e-mail SharedServiceHelpdesk@gov.wales request an application pack in an alternative format, or to request a reasonable adjustment related to an impairment in order to submit your application.

To apply, you'll need to have an account on our online application system. Click the 'Apply' button below, and you'll be asked to 'Log in' if you already have an account, or 'Register' if you don't yet have an account. Registration takes just a few minutes to complete. You'll need an e-mail address to be able to register. Once you've registered for an account and logged in, you'll be taken to the online application form, which you'll need to fully complete and submit before the deadline on the closing date.

If you’d like to apply for this vacancy in Welsh, please use the ‘Newid Iaith / Change Language’ link at the top of this page, to take you to the Welsh version of this advert, from which you can apply in Welsh.

Equality and Diversity

The Welsh Government is committed to providing services which embrace diversity and which promote equality of opportunity. This is underpinned by the Equality Act 2010 and will be adhered to at each stage of the recruitment process. Our goal is to ensure that these commitments are also embedded in our day-to-day working practices with all our customers, colleagues and partners.

We are committed to being an anti-racist organisation and increasing diversity in the Welsh Government by removing barriers and supporting all our staff to reach their potential. We are committed to recruiting Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people and disabled people who are currently under-represented in Welsh Government.

We welcome applications from everyone regardless of age, marriage and civil partnership (both same sex and opposite sex), impairment or health condition, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, gender identity or gender expression.

We are a Stonewall Diversity Champion and a Disability Confident Level 3 (Leader) organisation. Key to supporting this work and providing peer support are five Board sponsored Staff Networks (Disability Awareness and Support (DAAS); Minority Ethnic Support Network (MESN); Mind Matters (Mental health and well-being); PRISM (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex +) and Women Together.

Disability Confident

The Welsh Government has adopted the social definition of disability, in which it is recognised that barriers in society act to disable people who have impairments or health conditions, who are neurodivergent or who use British Sign Language. We are committed to removing barriers so that all (or potential new) staff can perform at their best.

We guarantee to interview any disabled person who meets the minimum criteria for the post. By ‘minimum criteria’ we mean that you must provide us with evidence, at each stage of the assessment process before interview, which demonstrates you generally meet the job description requirements. We are committed to the employment and career development of disabled people.

If you have an impairment or health condition, if you are neurodivergent or use British Sign Language and need to discuss reasonable adjustments for any part of this recruitment process, or wish to discuss how we will put in place any adjustments if you were to be successful, please email sharedservicehelpdesk@gov.wales as soon as possible and a member of the team will contact you to discuss requirements and any questions you may have.

A Great Place to Work for Veterans

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans initiative.

Welsh Language Requirements

The Welsh Government is a bilingual organisation and Welsh language skills are considered an asset to the organisation. We encourage and support staff to learn, develop and use their Welsh language skills in the workplace.

The following list of language requirements represents an objective assessment by the line manager on behalf of the Welsh Government of the Welsh language skills required to undertake the duties of this particular post.

Welsh language skills: not necessary to undertake the duties of this post.

Social Partnership

In Welsh Government, the relationship between the employer and trade unions is based on social partnership. We believe our goals can best be achieved by management and trade unions working together.

Our 3 recognised trade unions are:

• PCS
• Prospect
• FDA

This relationship is underpinned by a partnership agreement. This sets out how our unions work with Welsh Government on issues such as:

• pay
• terms and conditions
• policies and procedures
• organisational change.

Our Welsh Government trade union colleagues work together to give their members a real say in the workplace. They make sure that the interests of their members are promoted and protected. They also help reduce inequalities and improve terms and conditions.

The Welsh Government has an excellent track record of working in partnership with its trade unions. We encourage staff to get involved. We support you to join a recognised trade union, to ensure your voice is heard in the workplace. and to learn more about trade unions and partnership working.