Executive Assistant

The NSPCC's purpose is to prevent cruelty to children across the UK and Channel Islands. The Policy and Social Change (PSC) and Strategy and Transformation (S T) Directorates exist to help shape the world around us and what the NSPCC does so it reflects our evidence and learning about what works to ensure babies, children and young people are safe from abuse.

The Directorates are responsible for:

• Influencing public policies, laws and social change through research, policy and campaigning.
• Leading the development of our organisational strategy, developing innovative services and managing our knowledge and information.

The Executive Assistant provides proactive, high quality administrative and organisational support to the Directors of Policy and Social Change and Strategy and Transformation. The role exists to:

• Provide effective support to Directors, ensuring the Directorates work at their best.
• Deliver high-quality customer care to both internal and external stakeholders.
• Develop, manage, and review administrative and information systems to keep processes smooth and reliable.
• Work with colleagues to solve challenges and improve systems and processes.

By enabling effective leadership and upholding NSPCC values and safeguarding standards, the postholder plays a key role in supporting the Directorates' work to keep children safe from abuse and neglect.

Key relationships

Internal: Reports to the Director of Policy and Social Change as well as the Director of Strategy and Transformation, works closely with their respective Senior Management Team and attends SMT meetings. Builds and maintains working relationships with the other Executive Assistants, administrative and support staff, and all Directorates staff to enable the provision of high-quality administrative support and information.

External: Maintains and builds relationship with NSPCC stakeholders, such as professional partners of the directorates, suppliers and other service providers.

Main duties and responsibilities

• To provide administrative support to the Director of Policy and Social Change and the Director of Strategy and Transformation, including but not limited to, diary management, travel bookings, meetings support and forward planning.
• To assist with the Directors' cost centres and financial responsibilities (including raising purchase orders, handling supplier processes and contract set up), and holder of the Directorates' purchasing card.
• To ensure information and material about the Directorates on internal communication channels are clear and up to date (including on Directorate Teams channels, on The Green and the Volunteer Hub).
• To be a source of expertise and support to the Directors on recruitment and onboarding of new colleagues.
• To organise regular Senior Management Teams and Directorate-wide meetings for each Director as required including being responsible for agendas, notes and action logs.
• To be an accessible and approachable member of the two Directorates, proactively sharing information when necessary and developing an excellent knowledge of NSPCC processes and procedures.
• To coordinate and support projects relevant to the Directorates' work, including projects on child sexual abuse, child safety online, strategy reviews and NSPCC Learning Services.
• To co-organise and facilitate internal lunch and learn sessions for colleagues across the Directorates.
• To act as a trusted member of the Executive Assistants forum.

Responsibilities for all Staff within Policy and Social Change and Strategy and Transformation

• To comply with all relevant NSPCC safeguarding policies.
• A commitment to applying NSPCC Values and Behaviours to all aspects of work.
• To maintain an awareness of own and others' health and safety and comply with NSPCC's Health and Safety procedures.
• A sound understanding of and commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion.
• To comply with NSPCC Diversity and Equality policies and practices and work in a manner which facilitates inclusion.
• To maintain and develop competence in the use of IT systems.
• To manage confidential and/or sensitive information in accordance with NSPCC policies and Data Protection and GDPR regulations.
• A commitment to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people.

Person specification

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills to deal professionally with a range of internal and external stakeholders and colleagues.
• Excellent written communication skills and the ability to understand, interpret and present complex information in a clear and accurate way for a range of audiences.
• Exceptional organisational skills with the ability to balance multiple demands and prioritise, anticipate needs and forward plan accordingly.
• Demonstrable experience of running meetings (both virtual and in person), including arranging, facilitating, minuting, organising action logs and necessary follow ups.
• Strong problem-solving skills including the ability to think quickly under pressure to resolve unexpected issues alongside ability to research, analyse and present effective solutions to operational challenges.
• Discretion and the ability to deal with confidential information sensitively and appropriately.
• In depth experience of using Microsoft software packages (including Teams, Word, Outlook and Excel).
• Demonstrable commitment to the NSPCC's mission to prevent cruelty and stop child abuse and neglect.

Safer Recruitment

As an organisation, we are committed to creating and fostering a culture that promotes safeguarding and the welfare of all children and adults at risk. Our safer recruitment practices support this by ensuring that there is a consistent and thorough process of obtaining, collating, analysing and evaluating information from and about candidates to ensure that all persons appointed are suitable to work with our children and adults.

The recruitment and selection of our people will be conducted in a professional, timely and responsive manner and in compliance with current employment legislation, and relevant safeguarding legislation and statutory guidance.

Our principles:

• Always seek to recruit the best candidate for the role based on merit including their skills, experience, motivation and competencies.
• Our robust recruitment and selection process should ensure the identification of the person best suited to the role and the organisation.
• Committed to diversity and equality of opportunity and will interview all applicants (internal and external) who self-declare at application as having a disability and who meet the minimum requirements in the person specification of the vacancy they are applying for.
• We will make reasonable adjustments at all stages of the recruitment process in order to enable successful candidates who declare disabilities to start working or volunteering their time with us.
• Any current member of staff or volunteer who wishes to apply for vacancies and is suitably qualified will be considered and addressed fairly and objectively based on their merit.
• As an organisation committed to safeguarding, we will ensure all under 18s joining the organisation will have ongoing risk assessments to ensure their role and activities are safe and appropriate.
• All documentation relating to candidates will be treated confidentially in accordance with the GDPR legislation.