We are seeking a highly organised and confident Executive Officer to join our team. This role is ideal for someone with excellent governance and administrative skills who enjoys coordinating committees, supporting senior stakeholders, managing regulatory and policy requirements, and ensuring effective compliance across the College.
The position is set to commence ASAP and will be from 17.75-22.5 hours per week for 12 weeks (with a pay rate of £18.80 per hour + holiday pay).
Main Duties:
Governance
- Organise and provide direct support to key College committees. This will include:
- producing agenda and collating papers, and distributing these to members before a meeting, in line with the relevant practice or, where relevant, with College Regulations.
- producing draft minutes of meetings and sending these to committee chairs for comment and approval
- ensuring minutes are approved and published in a timely and clear manner
- maintaining a record of attendance and apologies for absence
- maintaining a calendar of meetings for at least the following academic year
- Where appropriate, you will brief committee chairs prior to a meeting of the key issues to be discussed and agreed and support the meeting chairs in between meetings by ensuring agreed actions are in progress.
- Develop and maintain the committee section of the College’s SharePoint site, ensuring that documents are indexed and organised in a clear and efficient manner and that the correct stakeholders can easily access and retrieve committee minutes and papers.
- Ensure that actions agreed by committees are completed, collating any resulting responses, decisions and paperwork.
- Guide the processes of new policy documentation and implementation. This will include:
- maintaining the library of College Regulations and Policies and ensure that these are available in an accessible format to College members
- reviewing all standard College policies at least annually, highlighting possible areas for update and revision to committee chairs
- ensuring that changes to policies and practice comply with the College’s obligations under Equality, GDPR or other relevant regulations.
- Assist in the College’s ongoing review of regulations.
- Coordinate and maintain the completion and compilation of annual Trustee Declaration forms and the Register of Interests, ensuring that the Bursar is made aware of any important conflicts.
- Update lists of committee membership and inform the Charity Commission of changes to the membership of the Trustee Board.
- Produce, update and publicise termly lists of Key College Personnel, Governing Body Fellows (including details of those on sabbatical) and the College Timetable
- Take an active role in supporting ad hoc working groups and other panels as necessary, including preparing agendas, collating and distributing paperwork, and drafting minutes of meetings.
- Provide other administrative support to the College as the need arises.
Support for Governing Body Fellows
- Manage all processes relating to Governing Body Fellows, working with the Bursar. This will include:
- Supporting the Warden and Bursar with recruitment and induction for the College, including by providing College tours to candidates and coordinating with University colleagues, ensuring new Governing Body Fellows feel welcomed to the College
- Populating template letters for signature by the Bursar and issuing these, responding to queries that arise and dealing with issues
- Undertaking Right to Work checks for Governing Body Fellows in line with Home Office guidance
- Maintaining a record of terms of office for all College Officers and relevant committee members and communicating these to colleagues as appropriate
- Working with the Bursar and other colleagues as required to coordinate leaver processes relating to Governing Body Fellows.
- Record completion of required training, for example, Information Security training (required annually), ensuring certificates are held on file.
Regulatory compliance
- Act at the key point of contact for regulatory compliance duties specific to UK public bodies. These include:
- Acting as the College’s Information Officer, taking the lead on requests made under the Freedom of Information Act (2000) in line with regulatory requirements, coordinating with colleagues to compile accurate responses, and liaising with the Data Protection Officer as regards any data privacy matters as necessary, ensuring ultimately that a reply is sent within the designated time period.
- Taking responsibility for relevant information published on the College website (e.g. Freedom of Information and Governance)
- Coordinating and submitting regulatory returns as required, for example to the Charity Commission, Companies House and the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, or those relating to the Prevent Duty or Freedom of Speech Act, and ensure lists of trustee or company director names are kept up to date on the Charity Commission and Companies House websites
- Keeping abreast of regulatory changes affecting the College advising others of any new legislation that may be relevant and proposing steps for the College to take in light of this, leading on implementation as required
- Drafting Consultancy Agreements on behalf of the Bursar and reviewing draft Agreements submitted to the Bursar for signature, liaising with colleagues as to any revisions that may need to be made.
Selection Criteria:
- High level of professional administrative experience, including experience of supporting and advising senior colleagues
- Experience of committee servicing, including the production of agendas and minutes, with the ability to appropriately document a variety of nuanced and complex matters in clear written English, using your judgement
- Excellent organisational skills with the ability to work calmly, often under pressure, to meet deadlines, manage and prioritise own work schedule and manage a number of competing tasks
- Confident written and spoken communication skills, and the ability to deal appropriately with relevant stakeholders
- Experience of interpreting information and presenting findings clearly, working with accuracy and excellent attention to detail
- Good awareness and understanding of the requirements of a range of legislation affecting UK public bodies (e.g. Freedom of Information, Prevent, Freedom of Speech), and a willingness to undertake further training as required
- Proactive, positive and collaborative approach to work with ability to work independently and as part of a close-knit team
- Excellent IT skills and the preparedness to learn new applications
- Flexible approach to the work and willingness to take on ad hoc administrative tasks that arise
- Tact, diplomacy and discretion; experience of working with confidential or sensitive information
- Willingness to accept responsibility for work falling into your remit, including work to meet new regulatory or other requirements that may arise, taking the lead where appropriate and being proactive in your approach.
- Experience of charity governance or other relevant regulatory compliance
- Experience of working in an educational environment
- Sympathy with the values, ethos and objectives of a small, international community
- A relevant qualification, e.g. Certificate in Charity Law and Governance or similar
Vacancy ID: 24107
Please be aware that all candidates need to be able to start work immediately and must be able to work on site if required to do so.
Further information can about the Temporary Staffing Service can be found on our website https://www.jobs.ox.ac.uk/temporary-staffing-service