Temporary Personal Assistant / Admin – Admin & Clerical

Reference no: Cheshire E 5222352

Pay rate: £12.70 per hour PAYE

Minute taking skills and experience are essential for this role

An experienced Personal Assistant is required to provide two Children's Directors with high quality executive secretarial, administrative and personal support. To provide high level organisational, administrative and research support to the Directors to assist them in developing and driving the Council’s vision, priorities and planning and enhancing the outcomes achieved by the Council through working in partnership with the Government, business and public sectors in the Borough, sub-region, region and nationally.

Key responsibilities:

• Provide a full personal and confidential secretarial and administrative executive support service for multiple Directors, including the preparation of documents, agendas, drafting reports, taking of minutes at meetings and updating databases so that they can successfully undertake their role maximising the effective and efficient use of time.
• Screen visitors, telephone calls and email correspondence addressed to the Directors. Acting as a first point of contact and, in the absence of the Directors, exercise a high degree of initiative, integrity and sensitivity, making appropriate judgements and decisions in order to deal effectively with matters as they arise, particularly complex, personal or political natured matters.
• Strategic management and planning of the Directors diary, commitments and schedules; liaising closely with colleagues supporting the wider Executive Team to ensure that the Executive Directors and Directors work programmes, attendance at events and other activities complement each other.
• Liaise and consult with Services to provide early warnings and prompt briefings for the Directors on major issues affecting local government in general and their impact in Cheshire East so that strategic responses can be appropriately planned and that the Directors are kept well informed.
• Arrange transport and accommodation as required, often of a complex nature, both inside and outside the UK, researching all options and liaising with colleagues on all available suitable options, to ensure the best use of their time and resources.
• Manage the flow of correspondence to and from the Directors. Read and evaluate incoming correspondence and reply on own initiative or draft letters and straightforward reports, ensuring a high standard of written work so as to make best use of the Directors time.
• Produce documents, often of a highly sensitive and confidential nature, accurately and to deadlines, including correspondence in the form of letters, memos and reports and, in addition, drafting documents using ICT systems, Microsoft packages (PowerPoint, Excel, etc.).
• Cover for the Executive Personal Assistant during absence.

“Role Requirements” – to give yourself the maximum chance of success please try and ensure your CV addresses the following essential criteria:

Qualifications:

• GSCEs, or equivalent, including English and Maths.
• Formal secretarial training or NVQ level 3 in Business Administration.

Experience:

• Extended experience working in a senior secretarial/personal assistant role within a local government setting.
• Proven previous experience of working in a political environment.
• Diary management experience.
• Experience of working as a PA to a Director or equivalent Board Level Executive desirable.

Knowledge & Skills:

• Highly developed political and diplomacy skills. Comprehensive understanding of local government legislation and political processes.
• Understanding of the secretarial support requirements of individuals at senior management level within a local government setting.
• Office management and administration procedures and best practice knowledge.
• Understanding of confidentiality, data protection and freedom of information requirements and responsibilities and understanding of disability discrimination act and Health and Safety requirements in an office setting.
• Understanding of the role of Members in Local Authorities.
• Discretion and confidentiality skills when dealing with all matters.
• Accurate typing (to a minimum of 60 words per minute) and shorthand (up to a minimum of 140 wpm) skills.
• Minute taking skills and experience are essential for this role.
• Highly developed critical and analytical thinking skills.
• Developed planning and organisational skills – for diary management and organisation of events/meetings etc.
• Fact finding, research and analytical skills – e.g. able to undertake research on specified topics etc.
• Able to organise workload in response to changing and conflicting demands.
• Problem solving skills – e.g. able to respond to a wide variety of internal and external enquiries.
• Excellent attention to detail skills.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills – able to effectively convey complicated/ sensitive information to a range of audiences in a clear and concise manner.
• Minimum of 12 months recent experience in a similar role, or context and ideally within a public sector organisation.
• Strong IT skills using Microsoft packages or equivalent (e.g. G Suite).

NB: Please feel free to apply to us direct via [email protected] by quoting the job reference and job title exactly. SEE DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS AD.

If you have previously applied to one of our vacancies and have already sent the required supporting documentation to us, please make this clear when you re-apply as this will help speed up your application.

To help speed up the process of uploading your CV to the client we would suggest that you send us your CV in Word format (or equivalent) if possible, rather than as a PDF.

If you are successful in securing this role, please note that for the entire duration of this contract, regardless of extension you will be working this role at the PAYE rate that has been advertised. For absolute clarity, we only work on a PAYE basis, rather than entertaining umbrella pay terms, we do not offer Ltd/umbrella or outside IR35 rates. If you wish to understand PAYE vs Umbrella more, please let us know and we can send you some additional information for clarity.