Office Manager (Ann Tayler Children and Family Hub)

ABOUT HACKNEY EDUCATION

Hackney Education provides a range of services to support the education of children, young people and adults in our inner London borough. Hackney is one of the UK’s highest performing local authorities, serving one of London’s best places to live and work. Within our diverse borough we serve a wide range of children and young people. We have a particular focus on supporting less advantaged families: Hackney figures in the 10% most deprived boroughs in England on a number of measures.

Hackney Education’s key priority is to improve the life chances of every child, young person and learner: making Hackney the most forward looking education system in the UK, where schools, settings and partners provide an exciting environment which ensures inclusion and success for everyone. We see our borough as being one of the best places in the country for young people to grow, learn, develop and achieve –and one of the best places for colleagues to work and thrive in our education system.

PURPOSE OF THE POST

• To maintain the Children and Family Hub financial systems in order to facilitate effective financial control within the Centre.
• To ensure that appropriate systems of accountancy are in place in the Hub.
• To monitor all budget holder accounts in collaboration with the Children and Family Hub Manager.
• Support the senior leadership team in developing the business and resource management. Ensure high quality performance through effective monitoring, evaluation, development and best value approach to the use of resources to enable services to deliver best value.
• To support the administration /reception team to deliver front line services.
• To work with the admin/reception team on data imputing, monitoring quarterly data and report to senior leadership team.
• To lead the admin/reception on data management and monitoring.
• To oversee admin/reception work rota and cover.

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Deliver outstanding service

• Implement and maintain effective financial control of the Children and Family Hubs financial systems and accounts.
• In collaboration with the Children and Family Hub Manager, be responsible for management of the Centres accounting function.
• Organise and supervise administrative systems within the centres. Contribute to the planning, development and monitoring of support services and/or management of support staff.
• Advise the Children and Family Hub Manager on financial matters.
• Support the improved outcomes for all children, parents and other users of the Centre by providing a robust, innovative and comprehensive administration service to the Children and Family Hub Manager and the Family Hub team.
• To ensure that an efficient and effective secretarial and administrative support service is provided to the Children and Family Hub Manager, including answering queries as appropriate, confidential typing and word processing support; the
  maintenance of accurate accounts and the development of office systems and procedures as required.
• Support all Family Hub services by ensuring filing and copying occurs. Facilitate the provision of toys, office equipment/supplies and ordering.
• Play a key role in ensuring that front line enquiries from staff, parents and visitors are dealt with and that messages are passed on with suitable records of enquiries, events, messages and appointments are entered on the appropriate system.
• To prepare reports, financial statements and minutes of meetings as required.
• To be responsible for matters and maintain accurate salary information.
• To give advice to the Children and Family Hub Manager on assessment of salaries, expenses, sickness and maternity procedures.
• Support the Children and Family Hub Manager by liaising with payroll to resolve all salary queries for support, practitioner and teaching staff.
• To maintain accurate records and registers of the children/families using services at the Centre; providing administrative/electronic support to the admissions process and completing necessary returns, ensuring confidentiality.
• To liaise with finance and other council departments on all aspects of budgetary control.

Increase service quality and performance

• To have oversight, performance and line management responsibility for administrative, caretaking and premises functions across the Children and Family Hub.
• Undertake the effective administration processes required to support the databases and admissions processes of the Nursery, Crèches and Outreach Team within the Children and Family Hub.
• Preparation of invoices and collection of all fees and other dues, taking legal action with appropriate advice where necessary to recover bad debts.
• To be responsible for banking, ensuring monthly full reconciliation is undertaken.
• To assist in the preparation of statistics and return of information to the London Borough of Hackney and external bodies e.g. Department for Education.

Identify opportunities for personal and professional development

• Be responsible for the day-to-day operational management of the Centre administrative team and Site and Maintenance Manager, providing supervision and guidance for office staff, including direct line management where appropriate.
• To performance manage the administrative staff and Site and Maintenance Manager to ensure the smooth day-to-day operation of the service and ensure that workloads are programmed and delivered to agreed time and quality standards.

Identify opportunities for innovation/new business development

• Work with the Children and Family Hub Manager and other appropriate service areas in constructing grant/finance applications within an agreed system of priorities and criteria for applying and allocating funds.
• Design, operate and maintain finance support systems and procedures. Compile data and prepare necessary reports.
• Create systems for monitoring, evaluation and assessing services delivered from the Children and Family Hub.
• Design appropriate processes and forms to monitor visitors and other attendances to the Family Hub, in line with the Health & Safety policies.

Make best use of resources

• To monitor and maintain all ICT, staffing and administrative systems.
• To ensure systems and practices are in place for the recording and maintenance of the Centre’s administrative and staff personnel records, including leave, training and sickness absences.
• Create and provide information packs to promote the service jointly with the teams, using in-house facilities and external publishers as approved by the Head of Children and Family Hub.
• Ensure that the Reception and other public areas are tidy, welcoming and neat by ensuring that the staff responsible for these areas follow laid down procedures and systems.
• To co-ordinate the purchase of goods and supplies using best value principles.
• To be responsible for maintaining an assets register.

Develop strong relationships across teams and with partners

• Generate financial monitoring reports for Hackney Education, Children and Family Hub Manager, Advisory Board Children’s Neighbourhood Partnership Board, Parent/Carer Forum and Senior Management Team. Manage and complete the necessary financial returns, grant claims and disbursements.
• In conjunction with the Children & Family Hub Manager, prepare the annual budgets and monthly expenditure accounts for discussion with the senior management team meeting and Children’s Neighbourhood Partnership Board as requested.

Reflect best practice and ensure compliance

• Working with the Site and Maintenance Manager, have oversight of all Health and Safety logs and risk assessments to ensure they are up to date.
• To maintain and manage the Single Central Register (SCR) ensuring that all information is up to date for all staff, including external agencies working at the centre/s.
• Manage the Disclosure and Barring service on all staff including supply cover.
• Ensure that all enquiries and messages are dealt with in strict confidence and that information is not disclosed to those persons who should not properly be made aware of such information.
• Manage and maintain procurement records, invoicing and related financial activities in line with policies of the London Borough Of Hackney. Use the approved ordering system to produce Purchase Orders as requested, ensuring that the Children’s
  Centre / Children and Family Hub administrative team follow the procedures relating to procurement, new suppliers and expenditure at all times.
• To be responsible for the security of data, ensuring that all areas of data protection are followed.
• To undertake additional or other duties as may be appropriate to achieve the objectives of the post and as directed and deemed appropriate by the Line Manager.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Qualifications:

• Qualified or studying towards a qualification in Finance.

Experience:

• Experience in financial management (Candidates with experience in an educational context will be at an advantage).
• Experience of using, maintaining and developing administrative systems.
• Experience of using Management Information Systems.
• Experience of working in office environment at a senior level.

Knowledge and Skills:

• Equal Opportunities issues within the workplace.
• IT Administration systems.
• Implementation and maintenance of robust financial and administrative procedures and controls.
• Budget Management Skills.
• Experience in implementing and using finance/accounting IT systems.
• Ability to produce and explain financial statistics.
• Good understanding of databases – including ability to use databases to produce reports and statistics.
• Ability to communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing.
• Ability to build and maintain effective working relationships with a wide variety of people.
• Ability to manage the workload of admin staff
• Display commitment to the protection and safeguarding of children and young people.

To view the full job description, please click here –> Hackney Education – Office Manager (Ann Tayler Children and Family Hub) JD