School Information Technology Service Desk Officer

Company Description

Gwynedd Council offers an attractive employment package, for more information please click on this Information Pack  

Gwynedd Council operates internally through the medium of Welsh, and offers all its services bilingually. The applicant will be required to reach the linguistic level noted as one of the essential skills in the Person Specification. 
 
We encourage everyone who applies for a job with Gwynedd Council to submit job applications in Welsh or bilingually.  
(Applications submitted in English only or Welsh only will always be treated equally, but we ask applicants to consider carefully what the linguistic requirements of the job in question is and if it would be more appropriate to submit an application in Welsh.) 
 
For further information about this post please contact Gwenan Pritchard on 01286 679627 or via e-mail: [email protected] 
Application forms and further details available from Support Service, Gwynedd Council, Council Offices, Caernarfon, LL55 1SH 
Tel: 01286 679076 
E-Mail: [email protected] 
 
CLOSING DATE:  12:00 PM, 20/06/2025
 
The Council will request a Disclosure from the Disclosure and Barring Service for the successful candidate. 
 
If you are successful to be short listed for an interview you will be contacted by E-MAIL using the address provided on your application form. You need to ensure that you check your email regularly. 

Purpose of the post

• Ensure that the people of Gwynedd are at the heart of everything we do.
  
• Member of Gwynedd Schools IT Service Desk
  
• The service's first point of contact by telephone, email, self-service, virtual or face-to-face
  
• Responsible for receiving, responding, solving and escalating applications for technical assistance.
  
• Record, update and own events that have been promoted to the Service Desk
  
• Advising teachers or school ancillary staff on the use of and/or changes to digital equipment and systems used by the school
  
• Have the necessary skills and expertise to analyse a problem and solve them where possible
  
• Continue as the customer's point of contact facilitating a resolution for the problem by other experts in the service should it not beresolved as part of the first contact
  
• Working as part of a team, identify where the service can be improved through the use of technology.
  

Responsibility for functions

Staff:

• Be prepared to advise others or train other team members about technical items.
  

Finance:

• Have an input into reviewing processes in order to identify a more cost-effective method of working.
  

Data/ Equipment / Software:

• Be aware of the standards highlighted in the Gwynedd Schools Digital Strategy
  
• Provide first contact support for all aspects of digital provision that are essential to the day-to-day work of schools; analysing problems, solving or avoiding them
  
• Occasionally, a situation may arise where it will be necessary to visit the problem directly on a site in the school
  
• May contribute to equipment configuration where appropriate leading to some physical work
  
• May be pro-actively contacting schools to inform them of changes and/or problems
  
• May liaise with external suppliers to resolve issues
  
• Lead by example by adhering to cyber security standards in all aspects of the job.
  

Main duties

Making decisions, organising and being innovative:

• Investigate new developments in the field of digital provision for schools as part of continuous learning advising the Digital Services Manager of the findings
  
• Attend training organised by the unit and contribute to conversations that measure the training needs of the service, the training can be a virtual, internal or external event
  
• Managing his/her relatively complex and technical workload
  
• Provide technical support in specific fields to others within the team
  
• May be asked to provide input into the decision-making process in terms of selecting suppliers and products
  
• May be asked to provide input to policies and procedures that he/she will possibly be required to record.
  
• Make decisions on the best way to resolve issues that could affect a number of users
  
• May contribute to performance measurement procedures by preparing data and managerial statistics for internal submission in the IT Service, or for wider reports.
  

Communication:

• Deal with a very large number of calls, often under huge pressure to deal with calls that inform of issues that prevent a large number of users from doing their work
  
• Need to be able to deal sympathetically with users that are getting in touch to report a problem or failure
  
• Managing customer expectations
  
• Provide the latest position succinctly and factually to users on the status of their problem
  
• Excellent communication skills in order to communicate with users across the schools, including Heads
  
• Diligent in the management of calls within the incident management system
  
• Thorough analysis of problems
  
• Understanding the problem and what needs to be done to resolve it or refer it to the right place in order to resolve it
  
• Providing advice and guidance to users.
  

Other:

• Ability to solve problems across several areas of expertise
  
• Able to use the equipment and recognised techniques
  
• Be able to solve standard tasks but have wide-ranging skills and knowledge to analyse and solve non-standard problems
  
• A confident user of a wide range of computer systems and quick to learn about new systems
  
• Ability to run simple reports from standard systems e.g. create a simple query in SQL
  
• Able to work on several tasks at the same time
  
• Can analyse trends and identify problems that arise time after time
  
• Being responsible for identifying risks and ensure that responsibility is taken for them, or escalate them for further attention
  
• Lead by example by operating within the Council's Cyber Security policies and elevate any cyber incident or weakness through the IT Service's reporting channels immediately.
  

General:

• Responsibility for self-development.
  
• Ensure compliance with Health and Safety rules in the workplace in accordance with the responsibilities noted in the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Council’s Health and Safety Policy.
  
• Operate within the Council’s policies in relation to equal opportunities and equality.
  
• Responsible for managing information in accordance with the Council’s information management guidelines. Ensure that personal information is treated in accordance with Data Protection legislation.
  
• Commitment to reducing the Council’s carbon emissions in accordance with the Carbon Management Plan, and to encourage others to act positively towards reducing the Council’s Carbon Footprint.
  
• Undertake any other reasonable duty which corresponds to the salary level and responsibility level of the job.
  
• Responsibility to report any concern or suspicion that a child or vulnerable adult is being abused.
  

Special circumstances

As the Council’s computer function operates on a 24 hour basis, 7 days a week, there will be an occasional need to work during unsociable hours and at weekends with pay in accordance with the Council’s Terms and Conditions of Employment. Emergency calls will be subject to a specific discussion.

Personal attributes

Essential

The ability to develop new skills to fit in with an evolving digital world

Independent and able to make decisions individually and as part of a team.

A polite and approachable personality and patient when dealing with people

Able to listen, analyse and act on the information received

Willingness to venture and be innovative, recognising boundaries within which this can be realised

Organised, displaying the merits of effective administration

Confident while discussing with people; by phone, e-mail, virtual or face-to-face.

Qualifications and relevant training

Essential

Education to 'A level' or equivalent (NVQ/BTEC).

Desirable

A graduate in an IT discipline or similar

Current qualifications from a digital field such as those of Microsoft, Google, Apple, Cisco etc

Current driving licence.

Relevant experience

Essential

Confident in their use of computer systems, software and/or hardware.

Desirable

Experience of supporting IT systems

Experience of the education sector

Experience of dealing with customers

Skills and specialist knowledge

Essential

Strong documenting skills

Able to solve problems logically

Excellent communication skills

Able to communicate in a technical and non-technical way

Be able to use the web for troubleshooting.

Desirable

Aware of developments in the field

Knowledge of Microsoft products and administration systems

Able to resolve users' queries on some applications

Knowledge of the ITIL model.

Knowledge of relevant standards, e.g. BS7799.

Language requirements

Listening and Speaking - Intermediate

Able to maintain a fluent conversation on a number of various everyday subjects, and discuss cases involving the field of work.Able to follow a discussion in Welsh, in Clear Welsh, on familiar matters relating to the post. Able to contribute to the conversation and answer questions.

Reading and Understanding - Higher

Able to understand standard written Welsh and English; both formal and informal.Able to gather information from various sources such as letters, reports, articles through the medium of Welsh and English in order to fulfil the post.

Writing - Intermediate

Able to write letters for a specific purpose, e-mails and short reports in Welsh and English, using vocabulary and simple phrases that are familiar to the field of work. (They will need to be checked before being sent out).