Personal Assistant to Area Director, South East (SECB20)

Personal Assistant to Area Director, South East (SECB20) Arts Council England

Employment Type Full time Permanent working 35 hours a week

Location Hybrid United Kingdom(multiple locations) Brighton Cambridge Typically 1-2 days per week working from your designated office (one of the locations listed)

Salary £27,401 (GBP) final salary pension scheme, generous annual leave, and flexible and hybrid working

Team South East

Seniority Junior

Job Description

Overall Purpose of the role

You will be providing personal support to the Area Director and will be assisting the management of information and workflow between the senior leadership team.

Main day to day responsibilities

You will be providing personal assistance to the Area Director, proactively managing the Director's schedule, ensuring optimal use of time by coordinating meetings and making travel arrangements, managing email and ensuring that the Director is well briefed for meetings in advance, commissioning briefings and undertaking research as necessary.

You will be servicing and event-managing internal and external business meetings and co-ordinating administrative processes: collating and distributing agendas and papers, note taking and following-up on actions, and providing support for other committees or groups, as required. You will also be co-ordinating meetings and processes with and between other offices in the area as required, particularly in relation to Area Council.

In particular you will support the management team for the area, liaising with the Senior Manager, Operations, to plan the flow of business, liaising with Directors and others to prepare agendas and ensuring actions are followed up.

You will be the first point of contact for the Director, internally and externally. You will draft correspondence, respond to queries and liaise with internal and external stakeholders, acting as an advocate for the Arts Council through building effective working relationships

You will combine your ability to plan and prioritise with a flexibility and curiosity to work beyond this area of work, contributing to areas outside of your day-to-day responsibilities within your team's activities.

Finally, you will contribute to the organisation's commitment to diversity and its implications for the arts and culture, promoting a diversity perspective in all aspects of the post's objectives and activities.

You will contribute to a positive working culture in the organisation by taking a proactive approach to learning, responding to change, inclusive practice, and environmental responsibility.

You will reflect the Nolan Principles of Public Life and the Arts Council's values with a commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion.

Key relationships

You will work closely with the other Area Directors and their Personal Assistants as well as the Personal Assistant to the relevant Executive Director. You will liaise regularly with colleagues across the organisation, in particular the Governance and Planning team. You will liaise with Area Council Chairs and members.

What do I need to bring to the role?

Essential (Skills, Knowledge and Behaviours)

To succeed in this role, you will have senior level administrative experience in a similar role, providing personal assistance and managing a busy diary on which there are many conflicting demands, as well as experience of organising committee meetings and providing written records of those meetings.

You will be highly organised with the ability to prioritise and juggle multiple priorities and to exercise effective judgement when managing complex tasks.

You will have excellent interpersonal and communication skills -speaking, listening and in writing - and the ability to communicate in a confident and engaging manner and influence individuals over whom there is no formal line-management relationship.

You will have good research skills, the ability to interpret complex information and judgement to flag up issues to the Director as appropriate.

You will have the ability to maintain the highest standards of confidentiality and attention to detail and will be able to work with limited supervision, checking in with the Director regularly as needed.

Finally you will have a good understanding of the Arts Council's duty as a public body under current diversity legislation, the current diversity agenda and its relationship to the arts.

We are a Disability Confident Employer and we participate in the 'Offer an Interview' scheme, which means that we offer an interview to any disabled candidates who meet the essential criteria for the role they're applying to, subject to the volume of applications received. Disabled candidates, those living with a long-term condition and/ or neurodivergent candidates may be eligible for this scheme.

Our Code of Ethics requires that employees of the Arts Council are not able to receive an Arts Council grant, investment or loan funding - either in person, as a member of a partnership, or for any organisation they own. There are also limitations on board or CEO positions employees can hold in organisations we fund. For more information on this, please talk to the recruiting manager or contact