Jack Eldridge Email & Phone Number

London, United Kingdom

London, England, United Kingdom

As the COVID-19 outbreak gained momentum across the UK, DCMS rapidly set up a central team to coordinate any and all work performed across the department in relation to coronavirus response, surging existing staff into roles which made best use of their skill set. Broadly, the hub's work was as follows:1) Owning any and all correspondence with other government departments, especially the centre (The Cabinet Office, the Civil Contingency Secretariat, and No10).2) Being the single point of contact for any external stakeholders (members of the public, private sector organisations, arms-length bodies, other government departments).3) Owning and producing briefings for all DCMS ministers in advance of any COBR, Cabinet and other ministerial meetings called to discuss COVID-19 related topics.4) Coordinating work across DCMS policy teams to ensure effective and efficient delivery of new guidance and policy in relation to the outbreak5) Leading the DCMS contribution to the emergency bill passed in parliament in response to the outbreakI moved into the role of Operations Lead for the hub from its inception. The immediate work was to develop the logistical processes to ensure effective information flows into and out of the hub, as well as an intuitive but robust method for monitoring delivery of all work and actions owned by DCMS teams, and then implementing them as BAU to suit a team that could be called upon to work at any time of the day. The role involved management of 5 staff who ran these processes.The position also involved future planning for the hub, determining what additional resource would be required and the roles they would perform as the department's requirement became more clear over time.

London, England, United Kingdom

London, United Kingdom

Holborn, London

1, Horse Guards Road

As part of a restructuring of the Cabinet Office's finance unit, my role in the Constitution Group was absorbed into the Finance Team, and with that also came new opportunities in the department. I took on a new position in central finance, focusing on more strategic work, most notably the Cabinet Office's Annual Report and Accounts, and designing, launching and running secretariat on two new investment appraisal committees for scrutinising business cases for new expenditure from across the Cabinet Office (under and over £1m).

To complement my studies, I moved into a finance-based role to start gaining relevant experience. In this position, I was responsible for agreeing and paying grants to the ~350 local authorities in the UK for election-related expenditure, managing relationships with them all and devising an appropriate comms strategy with them, especially as elections approached.In my time in the team, the UK held a general election and the referendum on Scottish independence, which offered great experience working with a high volume of work at pace.

After completing my apprenticeship, I was successful in applying for a permanent position in the Cabinet Office and gained some wider responsibilities in my role, including the setting up and maintaining of a bespoke IT system for the team, managing some staff-related finances (such as expenses and small purchases), and acting as account manager for 4 government departments for the team's cross government work on the Quarterly Data Summary, which collected spend data across all government departments.During this time I also asked for support from the department to fund my professional studies with CIMA, which they agreed to.

I joined the Civil Service in December 2011 through an apprenticeship. I was placed in the Performance and Strategy Team, a part of the Efficiency and Reform Group, the purpose of which was to closely monitor the coalition government's work on cutting the UK's fiscal deficit.My role was to support the Deputy Director of Management Information as well as provide wider support to the MI Team.

Cima, Management Accounting

Cima, Management Accounting, Certificate

English Literature, History, Film Studies, Biology