So, are you experienced? looking for your next challenge? motivated and well-organised? Come and join our Business Support Service. The service provides personal and corporate support functions to the council’s leadership, which includes supporting a Corporate Director.
As part of the Business Support Service, you will be expected to collaborate with colleagues to deliver a gold-standard in personal support to ensure strict deadlines and timescales are met. Supporting compliance to departmental and governance procedures, learning how decisions are made at senior levels. You will be encouraged to develop innovative and modern systems, with a working knowledge of Microsoft Office. You will bring your brilliant organisational and prioritisation skills to this role, to support the leadership and deliver the area portfolio, acting as gatekeeper for commitments, and accommodating changes to schedules in a flexible way.
Key responsibilities will include but are not limited to:
- Managing a complex diary.
- Primary liaison for staff and colleagues. Maintain acumen of the priorities for the senior manager(s) who you will support, to be able to effectively horizon scan, highlight issues in good time, and ensure timelines are adhered to, time is spent efficiently, and work tasks are met.
- Support with event planning (i.e., research venues, research and track costs, manage RSVP lists, coordinate agendas and speakers) coordinating leadership meetings, events, team offsites, away days and workshops.
- Facilitate and moderate the monthly department meeting online / Zoom).
- Assisting with creating and sharing weekly team emails, coordinating presentation decks, and coordinating communications with wider teams.
- Responsible for updating corporate planning, take ownership of coordinating all documents for review by senior managers.
- Facilitate and coordinate new starter induction as directed by the Corporate Director (quarterly, in-person). Collate all items and documents for review, responsible for venue arrangements, catering and dietary requirements and managing RSVPs.
- Responsible for coordinating the directorate management team meeting as directed by the Corporate Director (quarterly). Collate all items and documents for review, responsible for all venue arrangements and setup.
- Assisting in the preparation of documents for executive meetings, including Board meetings, as required.
- Responsible for action logs, display acumen in recording and circulation to ensure actions are recorded with timescales and owners.
- Responsible for departmental employee contact lists in collaboration with Human Resources.
- Responsible for oversight of departmental inboxes to forward, signpost and take ownership of generic responses on behalf of the directorate.
- Responsible for maintaining the authorisation process in instances of leave and/or absence with respect to the Director, ensure the smooth operation of documents that may be submitted as part of the democratic oversight process.
- Responsible for department invoicing, ensuring coding and supplier checks in line with counter fraud measures.
- Act proactively and confidently to liaise with the senior managers who you will support, to understand their preferred way of working and the varied preferences for support in this role
- Keeping up to date with business priorities to support decisions around best use of Directors time.
An exciting opportunity has arisen to be part of the newly formed Business Support Service which brings together Business, Personal and Executive Support from the six departments into a centralised structure.
As an inclusive organisation ourCAREvalues underpin everything we do at Islington Council, and you will model these values by communicating effectively with confidence, while building productive working relationships with everyone you contact and putting our residents at the centre of service delivery.
Thank you for your interest, we look forward to receiving your application.
Closing date: Thursday 31st August 2023 at 23:59
Interviews: Wednesday 13th September 2023
- Act as “gatekeeper”, filtering all contact with the Director(s) /Service Director, exercising judgement with regard to whether matters require personal attention and the degree of urgency involved, and re-routing where appropriate. This includes tactfully handling all cold-calls, exercising consistently high standards of confidentiality, tact and diplomacy.
- Ensure the timely and confidential production of correspondence, reports and other documents required by the Director/Service Director(s) by whatever means (i.e. including dictation, audio tapes, notes etc.), ensuring that appropriate and available information technology is used to present these to the highest of standards.
- Making suitable meeting preparation, room bookings, verifying attendance, providing hospitality, setting up presentations and producing summaries for meetings.
- Manage all authorisation requests including but not limited to; Disclosure and Barring Service (DSB), Job Evaluations, payments and invoicing, Honorarium payments, Consultancy Business Cases, restructure proposals, Redundancy letters, managing the use of the electronic signatures. Maintaining confidentiality and GDPR of items at all times.
- Ensure that actions delegated by the Corporate Director/ Service Director(s) to other managers and staff in the department are progressed in their absence.
- To draft correspondence and reports on behalf of the Director/ Service Director(s), producing summaries of reports and preparing presentations on correct corporate templates.
- Ensure efficient diary management, including effective planning and prioritising of the Director’s /Service Director(s) time and availability.
- Ensuring that the assigned Director/ Service Director(s) receive appropriate briefings in advance of internal and external meetings and those presentations, which they need to deliver, are prepared.
- Manage events and meetings. This includes co-ordinating – liaising with external providers as necessary, and providing minute taking if appropriate, to ensure that actions are monitored and followed up.
- Liaise regularly on behalf of the Director /Service Director(s) with Members, local members of Parliament, and Chief Officers both within and outside of the Council, doing so in a professional polite and politically sensitive manner.
- Provide email cover for Director /Service Director(s), fully managing their emails in their absence.
- Collate and coordinate deputy cover for the Director /Service Director(s) and ensure on-call commitments are accurate recorded in their calendar.
- Dissemination of all staff communication on behalf of the Director /Service Director(s).
- Ensure governance processes are correctly followed and the reporting cycle is maintained.
- Ensure that all decisions taken are taken in line with the Council’s schemes of delegation and are properly recorded.
- Ensure that appropriate procedures are in place to sign off reports within deadlines, and that designated report authors are aware of reports they are responsible for and that all deadlines in the process are adhered to.
- Work with authors and managers to improve the quality of reports and presentations, re- drafting as necessary.
- In respect to corporate support responsibilities the post holder would be expected to confidently deputise for the Executive Liaison Manager including covering key meetings, preparing reports and presentations and arranging and facilitating senior boards, away days and so on.
