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Personal Assistant

Closing date: 26 February 2023 | Salary: £28,403 - £32,088 (Grade 4) | Location: Dolgellau, Bangor, or Cardiff

Contract type: Permanent

Work pattern: Full time, 37 hours per week.

Post numbers: 202556

As an organisation we support flexible working. This role allows hybrid working (a mix of home and office working) and a working pattern suitable for you can be discussed on appointment if you are successful.

You will be contracted to the NRW location stated in this advert, of which you will be required to attend for regular meetings, training and for one-to-one meetings with your manager. These will be planned in advance.

Job description

An exciting opportunity has arisen to provide the highest level of professional, efficient, administrative and secretarial support to the Head of Natural Resources Management including the role of Personal Assistant, enabling them to perform their duties in a timely and effective manner. You will work within Natural Resources Management and liaise across three broader teams of support staff, covering Operations, Evidence Policy & Permitting and Enabling Services Directorates and you and the colleagues within your teams will ensure that the support to the Leadership Team is resilient, flexible and working effectively and efficiently. This may include supporting other Executive Team or Leadership Team members within your directorate or on occasion outside the directorate. There may be an expectation to attend Natural Resources Management meetings/site visits across Wales and therefore the ability to drive may be considered advantageous.

We are a Category 1 responder under the Civil Contingencies Act, meaning we have the highest level of emergency responsibilities in the public sector, alongside organisations such as the emergency services, local authorities and health boards. This may require you to participate on an incident rota (or cascade), in order to be available to respond to an incident if one occurs.

Responsibilities

Your responsibilities include:

Fulfil the role of Personal Assistant to your ET or LT, supporting and co-ordinating your ET’s or LT’s workflow to enable optimum use of time, managing diaries, monitoring and organising to co-ordinate with the wider administration services teams, and arranging travel and booking accommodation.
Provide secretariat support at various meetings and boards (including working cross-directorate as necessary).
Develop good working relationships internally and externally with all key stakeholders including the offices of AMs, MPs and senior executives from partner organisations at a local and national level as needed in order to co-ordinate complex responses within your area of work.
Dealing with enquiries and acting as first point of contact for more complex enquiries (internal and external), ensuring courtesy and confidentiality and adherence with GDPR.
Be the business administrator for your management team, including co-ordinating the management of risk, actions, decision and issue logs, recruitment decisions and communications.
Manage and lead the co-ordination of specific Corporate or Directorate work.
Research and preparation of documents and presentations and other material to support the work of your directorate.
Provide interpretation and analysis of a range of information, including ensuring political implications are considered where appropriate to assist in decision making.
Support effective governance of the business of your management team.
Strive for continuous improvement to processes and procedures to increase efficiency and effectiveness.
As part of the network of staff in the Executive and Leadership Support Teams across NRW, ensure effective co-ordination and good communication between the different areas of the business.
Required to take part in incident response activities.

Qualifications, experience and knowledge

Knowledge and experience of the following:

4 GCSE’ s Grade A*-C (including Maths and English/Welsh) Or NVQ Level 2 in Administration Or Other equivalent.
Experience in all Microsoft Office applications ie. Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.
Broad knowledge of NRW and its functions and how the organisation operates.
Relevant experience of working in an administration or PA role supporting senior level managers and stakeholders, including experience of dealing with highly sensitive matters.
Excellent organisational skills with the ability to plan, organise and prioritise work effectively.
Excellent interpersonal and verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate professionally at all levels, to build strong stakeholder relationships with senior executives, politicians and others.
Excellent accurate written skills ie. drafting letters and reports.
Knowledge of current local and national issues relating to NRW insofar as they impact on the post and the relevant Executive Team/Leadership Team member.

Welsh language requirements

Essential Level 3 – Able to communicate with confidence in Welsh in some work situations.

Competencies

Applications to this role will be assessed based on the following competencies, both at shortlisting and interview. Please give examples of how you demonstrate these competencies when completing your application form.

Essential Knowledge and Skills	Excellent customer service and other soft skills developed through prior work experience which may be across a range of different posts and organisations. Good knowledge of business systems is also essential, with good IT, numeracy, literacy and organisational skills. Develop and demonstrate a good understanding of the work of NRW. Demonstrate an aptitude for continuing learning and development.
Evaluation of Information	Create a range of business documents which may entail gathering information from a range of sources and require an ability to interpret and analyse information. Some original thinking may be necessary for some aspects of the role. Contract management requiring the post holder to be able to fully understand and digest contractual requirements. Excellent knowledge of business processes and the ability to collate information.
Decision Making and Autonomy Requirements	Work will generally be guided by expected results, but the post holder may be able to decide how best to achieve these, within defined parameters. Guidance may be provided by others but there will likely to a need for some degree of judgment or creativity to be applied. Directly resolve problems and make decisions on how to deal with them. The range of solutions may be varied, requiring some degree of investigation and analysis before coming to a conclusion, although typically there will be a limited range of options. Adaptable and flexible, able to manage workflow and demonstrate a high degree of self-organisation.
Impact	Moderate effect on the business, potentially with a short to medium impact. The consequences of taking potentially incorrect action/decisions will be moderate to high, which will likely need to be addressed to avoid longer term impact. Responsible and accountable for the work they undertake and deliver although ultimately a more senior individual would be accountable for managing the longer time impact.
Communication and Relationships with Others	Communication across a range of functions within NRW, as well as with external parties. Relationships are likely to be of an on-going nature and may involve a degree of influencing. Communication will typically involve some level of advice and guidance to others.
Responsibility for Resources	Responsible for the safe operation of equipment and data that they use in order to fulfil the requirements of their role. Unlikely to be a budget holder but may be involved in the processing or checking of financial information.

Benefits of Working for us

This role will offer a range of benefits, including:

Agile and Flexible Working (role dependent)
Civil Service Pension Scheme offering employer contributions of 26.6% to 30.3%
28 days Annual Leave, rising to 33 days
Generous Leave Entitlements for all your life needs
Health and Wellbeing Benefits and Support
Weekly Well-being Hour to use at your choice

See full details for all the employee benefits you will receive.

How to Apply

Please send a completed Application form to Applications@naturalresourceswales.gov.uk using the post number as the email reference

Before completing your application, please read our Guidance on completing a job application form

Application closing date 26 February 2023

Interviews will take place on 6 March 2023 through Microsoft Teams

If you have any queries about the role, please contact Tracey A Blackwood at tracey.a.blackwood@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk

Natural Resources Wales embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunity. We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition.

We welcome and encourage applications from groups currently underrepresented, including women, black and ethnic minority groups and people with a disability. We have a guaranteed interview scheme for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

We put the principles of human rights, equality, fairness, dignity and respect at the heart of our values.

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