Job Vacancies at British Council

Role Type: Advisory, Policy & Expertise
Pay Band: 4
Duration: Fixed Term (till January 2021)
Reports to: Procurement and Estate Manager

Role Purpose

• To provide logistical and administrative support to the FCR programmes managed through the Abuja office that will enable the programmes to achieve their outcomes and targets including close collaboration with the State Offices.

Geopolitical/SBU/Function Overview
The British Council in Nigeria is implementing the European Union Conflict Management in Nigeria programme under their Trust Fund (EUTF) and the Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption programme in Nigeria under their Development Fund programme (EUDF). We have agreed with the EU to deliver the Agents for Citizen-driven Transformation under the development fund. In partnership with COFFEY, we are delivering the Policing work under their Conflict Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) and have plans to position ourselves for DFID’s forthcoming Anti-Corruption in Nigeria (ACorN) programme.

To support our existing contracts as well as future contracts, we are developing flexible structures that meet the global British Council standards to provide support to our FCR (Justice, Security and Conflict) work in Nigeria. The Conflict Management programme in North Eastern Nigeria is a €21m EUTF-funded Programme (2017-2021) and works with the overall aim of enhancing state and community level conflict management capability to prevent the escalation of conflict into violence in a number of locations in North-Eastern Nigeria.

The Programme has an annual turnover of around £5-£6m and work in 3 states – Adamawa, Borno and Yobe as well as in Abuja. The programme is being delivered alongside a partner (International Alert) with the British Council leading the contract. The Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption (RoLAC) programme in Nigeria is a €25m EUDF-funded Programme (2017-2021) and has the overall aim of enhancing good governance in Nigeria by contributing to strengthening of the rule of law, curbing corruption and reducing impunity. The programme has an annual turnover of around £5-£6m and work in 4 states - Adamawa, Anambra, Kano and Lagos as well as in Abuja.

The Agents for citizen-driven Transformation Programme is a €15m EDF-funded Programme which aims to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development in Nigeria through enhancing the credibility of CSOs and enhancing their role as independent development actors and drivers of change. The programme will be implemented at the Federal and in selected states where EU programmes concentrate.

The ACT programme has commenced with a 6 months inception phase from July 2018. The Nigerian context is generally challenging, having poor infrastructure and currently facing a volatile security situation. There is still a significant reliance on the cash economy, corruption is high and the regulatory and compliance structures that exist are highly ineffective. The overall economic situation is not good with the low oil prices leading to high unemployment, increasing inflation and a shortage of foreign currency causing the value of the Naira to weaken considerably.

This makes Nigeria a very challenging environment in which to deliver programmes. The Programmes Support Office is located in Abuja, but in an office separate from the main British Council office. The post holder must therefore have the ability to work in an ambiguous and difficult environment in which British Council processes need to be adapted or developed to cope with unusual requirements and difficult context. The post holder will work closely with the programme delivery and management teams as well as having significant interactions with the technical teams and Nigerian partners.

Main Accountabilities
Accountabilities, responsibilities and main duties:

• To support all administrative processes affecting the arrival, presence and exit of programme staff (internal and external) to ensure they can carry out their duties effectively
• Receipt and despatch of international staff personal effects on arrival and departure
• To support the effective delivery of the programme through knowledge of key processes and official organisations applicable to incoming international staff including immigration, National Planning Commission (NPC) residence registration, driving licences, etc.
• Lead in documenting appropriate processes/procedures for various residence permits for visiting international staff and consultants
• Building and maintaining effective relationships with key individuals who facilitate the official status of expatriate staff in country
• Facilitating all clearances necessary to ensure effective entry, presence and exit of international staff and consultants
• Make key programme policy documents available to visitors, e.g. Equality policy; IT Usage Policy Code of Conduct and ensuring that necessary papers/documents required from visiting consultants/staff are submitted on time and filed appropriately.
• Provide Visa application and processing support to programme staff on official duties; provide relevant visa letters and liaise with relevant embassies and visa agents to obtain visas
• Handle all hotel accommodation, venue and flight booking arrangements for staff and consultants as requested and to raise the relevant purchase orders (PO)
• Seek feedback from visitors and staff to check quality of and satisfaction with arrangements (hotels, transport etc)
• Develop and update data of various contact details of the hotels and ticketing agents used by the programme (including immigration and National Planning Commission)
• Lead in providing timely data on costs (hotel accommodation, hall/venue and flight) to the technical team to support preparation of budgets and analysis of VFM ratios
• Line management of Abuja Driver/Office Assistants including overseeing the maintenance office of the vehicle fleet and ensuring that drivers complete and record details of all the vehicle safety checks
• Raise purchase orders and process vendor invoices on time
• Cover the Abuja front desk and ensuring mobile phone top-up is available for staff and visitors
• Provide support to the Procurement & Facilities Manager around Inventories, Procurement, Office and Residential issues etc including being the first contact point for any maintenance issues required at the office or any of the residences
• Ensure that appropriate service contracts are in place for the state office and necessary services of the equipment are carried out in line with the agreed schedule
• Ensuring that fire drills are completed and fire equipment is maintained and that any security issues are reported promptly back to the Management team.

Standards:

• Programme team and external contacts are satisfied with logistical and administrative support
• Financial administration is prompt and in line with British Council and EU standards
• All logistic arrangements for staff, consultants and visitors are made in accordance with agreed standards, in good time and communicated effectively to the persons concerned
• Effective relationships are maintained with external contacts in relation to visit management, visas, flight bookings etc.
• Positive feedback from visitors and other team members about arrangements for workshops and Events
• Service is delivered in line with Equality Diversity and Inclusion standards to internal and external stakeholders
• Personal information is stored in compliance with data protection legislation and agreed standards
• Detailed vendor contacts documented, filed and shared with other resources team members
• Line management is carried out in accordance with the British Council standards
• Inventories are maintained to global standards as verified through audits.

Staff Management:

• Line manage the Abuja drivers

Other Administrative Work:

• As required.

Key Relationships:

• Internal:
  • National Programme Managers, Operation Managers, State Teams, Procurement and Estate Manager, HR Manager, Finance Manager, IT and Web Support Officer, Programme Officers, Admin and Resource Assistants in other locations.
  • All Visiting National and International Consultants.
  • Other Project Teams.
• External:
  • External relationship management where appropriate (i.e. linked to function of role), to include: Immigration Office, Officers of the National Planning Commission, Vendors, Hotel Account Managers and other Suppliers, etc.

Person Specification
Qualifications:

• Essential:
  • Graduate level education
• Desirable:
  • Evidence of continuous professional development.

Role Specific Knowledge & Experience:

• Essential:
  • Minimum of 2 years experience of working on programme logistics for an international organization
  • Experience of working as part of a successful team/function
  • Experience working with SAP.
• Desirable:
  • Experience of managing fleet of vehicles
  • Experience of operating in a complex, multi-cultural context.

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Role Type: Advisory, Policy and Expertise
Pay Band: 4
Location: Kano
Duration: Fixed Term, Until 31 December 2020 with possibility for renewal subject to donor funding
Reports to: KaLMA Operations Manager
 
Role Purpose

• The post holder will be responsible for managing and ensuring financial processes for the kano Literacy and Mathematics Accelerator (KaLMA) project; providing support to the Operations Manager and assistance to programme teams to specifically support the payment and invoicing processes as required
• Support the procurement process through monitoring of the vendor creation/amendment procedures and to provide assurance concerning the validity of potential vendors.

Project Overview
Nigeria is one of the largest economies in Africa. It is also the most populous country with over 190 million citizens. Nigeria holds significant political power in the region and internationally and its society retains a positive attitude to the UK. There are therefore major opportunities for the UK to increase influence, funding sources and, through this, our impact by building on our strong existing relationships with the Nigerian government, private and civil society institutions and customers/audiences. However, there are complex and substantial risks to this work like security and compliance. North West Nigeria faces a perennial problem of low learning outcomes. Data from the Nigeria Education Data Survey 2015 and the Education Sector Support Programme in Nigeria (ESSPIN) Composite Survey 2012 and 2016 indicate not only low attainments in literacy and numeracy but also declining trends. The ESSPIN Composite Survey 3 Gender and Inclusion Report, 2016 also points to gender gaps in learning outcomes, with boys significantly outperforming girls on all tests except P2 numeracy.
 
KaLMA aims to build foundational Hausa and English literacy and numeracy skills for primary 4 (P4) to primary 6 (P6) children using the Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) approach, equipping them with foundational literacy and numeracy skills before they leave primary school. KaLMA is a partnership between the British Council and TaRL Africa. TaRL Africa is a newly formalised partnership between Education NGO Pratham, and research centre J-PAL, who have been working together developing cost-effective, scaleable literacy and numeracy interventions for more than 15 years. The fruits of these efforts have been the development of what we now refer to as the TaRL approach.
 
The KaLMA project will be delivered in all 240 public primary schools in Wudil and Dawakin Tofa LGAs of Kano State. KaLMA will target all P4-6 children (23,559 in Dawakin Tofu and 28,152 in Wudil) and teachers (approximately 256 in Dawakin Tofa and 418 in Wudil). We have purposefully chosen to pilot in all schools so that we develop and learn about models which can be easily replicated and scaled across Kano and other North Western states.
 
Implementation of KaLMA is expected to begin in September 2019 and a fixed term employee contract for this post will be issued only after the contract with the donor is signed. A total of 267 working days have been budgeted for this position to be delivered over a period of 16 months. The British Council reserves the right to withdraw this post at any time until the employment contract is signed.

Main Opportunities/Challenges for this Role

• This role will work closely with the KaLMA Operations Manager and other relevant team members to manage the financial operations related to the delivery of the project in compliance with donor and British Council project delivery standards.
• It will also:
  • Afford the post holder exposure to various internal stakeholders across the operations
  • Increase the knowledge and use of SAP (financial management software) of the post holder
  • Involve working to tight deadlines to support delivery through financial operations support and other tasks
• The Nigerian context is generally challenging, having poor infrastructure and currently facing a volatile security situation. There is still a significant reliance on the cash economy, corruption is high and the regulatory and compliance structures that exist are highly ineffective
• This makes Nigeria a very challenging environment in which to deliver programmes.  The post holder must therefore have the ability to work in an ambiguous and difficult environment in which British Council processes need to be adapted or developed to cope with unusual requirements and difficult context
• S/he will work closely with the programme delivery and management teams.

Accountabilities, Responsibilities and Main Duties
Project Delivery:

• To undertake timely processing of invoices to designated workshops, meetings and events according to stated requirements
• Clearly communicate payment processing requirements and any changes to users and the responsible operations manager
• Processing payments and reconciling records according to agreed time standards for same. 

Payment Processes:

• To undertake the preparation and/or processing of all offline payment vouchers and cheques
• Maintenance of cash imprest and support in parking and posting of Petty cash transactions on to SAP.
• Audit travel, procurement and workshop expenses as may be directed by the Operations Manager or Finance Manager, keeping and recording items in Finance Safe
• Printing, filing, scanning and updating of finance related documents
• Supporting all payment and processing functions of the finance team
• Working closely with the Operations Manager or Finance Manager and the Country Finance Team to ensure that due process is followed, and that Nigeria’s finances are managed in line with corporate and client requirements  

Team Support and Contribution:

• To assist in taking on responsibilities to support the Programme Finance team where necessary and practical
• Ensure professionalism is demonstrated in own work area and customer / client needs and perspectives are reflected in own behaviours and focus
• To support the embedding of continuous learning and improvement into the team.

Other Administrative Work:

• As required.

Key Relationships:

• KaLMA Operations Manager
• KaLMA Team Lead
• KaLMA Project Delivery Team
• British Council Nigeria Finance team
• British Council Nigeria Procurement team
• KaLMA Delivery Consortium partners

External:

• Project Consultants, suppliers and vendors.

Role Requirements

• Passport requirements/Right to work in country: All applicants should have a pre-existing legal status to live and work in Nigeria. British Council will not facilitate / sponsor visa applications and work permits.
• Direct contact or managing staff working with children?: Appropriate Child Protection assurance checks in accordance with British Council policy.
• Notes: Some weekend and unsocial work required. Travel around Northern Nigeria, Nigeria and other locations will be required from time to time.

Person Specification
Essential:

• Fluency in written and spoken English - Shortlisted candidates will either demonstrate they have met the required standard through presentation of an agreed English language certificate or will be required to take the APTIS test and demonstrate a B2 level of English proficiency.

Qualifications
Essential:

• Relevant Undergraduate Degree from a recognised institution or equivalent professional experience

Desirable:

• Fully or part qualified on any Accounting qualification such as ACA, ACCA and CIMA.

Role Specific Knowledge & Experience
Essential:

• Minimum of 1 year experience working in a programme finance environment.
• High levels of personal effectiveness and the ability to focus on achieving deadlines.

Desirable:

• Experience working with donor funded programmes
• Experience of operating in a complex, multi-cultural context.
• Computer skills - A good knowledge of Microsoft Office suite.

British Council Core Skills
Managing Finance and Resources (Level 2):

• Uses financial systems and processes - Uses corporate financial systems and processes appropriately as part of the job and on behalf of a team.

Analysis Data and Problems (Level 2):

• Uses data - Reviews available data and identifies cause and effect, and then chooses the best solution from a range of known alternatives.

Managing Risk (Level 1):

• Follows good practices - Demonstrates understanding of risk management policies and procedures and record of following them.

Using Technology (Level 1):

• Operates as a basic user of information systems, digital and office technology - Able to use office software and British Council systems to do the job and manage documents or processes.

British Council Behaviours:

• Being accountable (Essential): Delivering my best work in order to meet my commitments
• Making it happen (Essential): Challenging myself and others to deliver and measure better results
• Working together (More demanding): Ensuring that others benefit as well as me
• Connecting with others (More demanding): Actively appreciating the needs and concerns of myself and others
• Shaping the future (Essential) Looking for ways in which we can do things better
• Creating shared purpose (Essential): Communicating an engaging picture of how we can work together.