PA to Director/Deputy Director(s) in Darlington

Salary: £27,680

Contract Type: Permanent

Working Pattern: This post is available on a full time, part time or job share basis, and flexible working hours can be accommodated.

Location: Darlington (Feethams House) only

Are you keen to develop a rounded set of high-level PA skills and are you someone who is proactive and has the ability to use their own initiative? If so, this could be the ideal role for you!

About the Team

The Public Services Group is at the heart of Treasury’s work to secure sustainable public finances and drive economic growth. We manage public spending of more than £250bn across key public services and departments, including health, education, the criminal justice system, local government, housing, defence and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. We do this by working with other government departments, ministers, and other Treasury teams to ensure that spending plans support high quality public services, help the economy to grow and provide value for money for the taxpayer. Our roles offer a range of opportunities to work with senior leaders in other government departments and on the frontline of public services and ensure the effective delivery of public services. The Group is committed to being an excellent place to work, with a relentless focus on good management, learning and development and continuous improvement in everything we do. The team works together to provide an efficient and professional administrative service to the eight teams within Public Services Group. We seek to ensure all support helps the teams meet corporate and management objectives. Another key service is the PA assistance we provide to the groups senior civil servants (SCS).

The key responsibilities of the post-holder will be:

• Proactively managing diaries to prioritise the most important meetings, arranging meetings in the most efficient order, identifying and resolving clashes before they happen, arranging any travel or other logistics i.e., meeting room and desk booking when based at all HMT sites, tech support where needed when joining or hosting virtual meetings.
• Confidence and knowledge on whom and when to delegate meetings to other members of the group where this is appropriate.
• Proactively managing email and phone calls to prioritise the most important and/or urgent messages and draw attention to them, whilst filtering out irrelevant messages.
• To ensure all relevant meeting papers and pre-meeting prep/materials have been provided to the Director’s.
• Proactively forward on/delegate messages to other members of the group where this is appropriate.
• Ensuring the Director/s are clear on what their agenda is for the day and the coming week, alongside all key priorities.
• Clear instructions on arrival time and location for each of their appointments and any additional support required to keep the meeting on track, i.e., building passes or procedures if offsite.
• Anticipating when appropriate to intervene in meetings to pull the Director’s out to keep their day on track or make them aware of an urgent action.
• Thinking ahead to identify any issues or tasks that the Director/s will have to deal with e.g. giving support on recruitment processes, tracking team budgets, taking minutes for team meetings and proactively making suggestions about the best way to organise and keep track of team objectives.
• Building good relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
• At times the post-holder may be asked to provide cover for additional members of the GMT to cover for staff absences in the GMS.
• Working collaboratively across the group workstreams on behalf of the GMS, supporting and contributing to the wider group work.
• The post-holder will work collaboratively with the other members of the Public Services Group GMS to provide high-quality administrative support to the Group through the GMS mailbox.

This means that the post-holder will gain experience of working across a number of teams and will also have the opportunity to shape the future of the GMS.

As part of your role you will complete a Level 3 Business Administration apprenticeship with Paragon. You will need to meet the eligibility requirements for apprenticeship funding, more information is available here, and pass an assessment of prior learning from the apprenticeship provider to ensure funding is being used to develop new knowledge, skills and behaviours.

Qualifications Required

You will be required to evidence the below existing qualifications: Equivalent of Level 2 Maths and English (GCSE Grade C/4 or above)

About You

We are looking for people who have the ability to use their own initiative and good time management to make effective decisions under pressure. You will also be able to deliver service objectives with professional excellence, expertise and efficiency, taking account of diverse customer needs. As well as being able to form effective partnerships and relationships with people both internally and externally.

Some of the Benefits our people love!

• 25 days annual leave (rising to 30 after 5 years), plus 8 public holidays and the King’s birthday (unless you have a legacy arrangement as an existing Civil Servant).
• Additionally, we operate flexitime systems, allowing employees to take up to an additional 2 days off each month.
• Flexible working patterns (part-time, job-share, condensed hours).
• Generous parental and adoption leave packages.
• Access to a generous Defined Benefit pension scheme with employer contributions of 28%.
• Access to a cycle-to-work salary sacrifice scheme and season ticket advances.
• A range of active staff networks, based around interests (e.g. analysts, music society, sports and social club) and diversity.