Office and Operations Manager at the Baobab Centre

Office and Operations Manager at The Baobab Centre

Job Description

Salary: £32,000 per annum (+ 4% pension contribution)

Hours: Full time 35 hours a week, hours by agreement (over 5 days per week)

Holiday: 25 days per annum + Bank Holidays

Accountable to: Executive and Clinical Director (one post)

Purpose of Role: This post is a new and key role for the Baobab Centre. We are looking for a full time Office and Operations Manager who has proven experience of financial, organisational and premises management including supporting and coordinating the work of both paid and voluntary staff. The role will also involve providing administrative support to the Executive and Clinical Director to enable her to focus on developing the strategic vision of the organisation.

Context: The Baobab Centre is a charitable organisation founded in 2008. W; we assist some of the thousands of unaccompanied children and young people that arrive in the UK each year to seek refuge. Most of the young members of the Baobab Community arrived in the UK as unaccompanied minors and are all either asylum seekers or refugees. Many of these young people have survived child-specific human rights abuses, which include cumulative trauma, organised violence; including torture and rape, war, separation and loss and trafficking and continue to experience difficulties in the UK. Many are destitute or have access to very little support.

The Baobab Centre is a unique community-led organisation that offers holistic support to young asylum seekers through long-term therapeutic care and practical guidance. The centre is accessible six days a week and provides individual and group psychotherapy; arts based groups, community activities, holiday projects and therapeutic retreats in the countryside, as well as general support and care. The Baobab services are open-ended and designed to continually support each individual for as long as they need. The Centre currently works with ninety over one hundred young people from 25 different countries and five different continents.

A key part of this role is to make each young person feel welcome, an especially important aspect of the role as the young members of our community are likely, initially, to be nervous ill-at-ease and untrusting. Young people are welcome to come to the Centre at any time, to use the computer, to have a drink and a snack and to ask for support and advice as well as attending for specific individual and group psychotherapy appointments, for appointments with our Senior Caseworker, for arts based projects, for football team practice and for community meetings.

. All the young people have experienced human rights abuses and all have experienced violence and loss. Most arrived in the UK as unaccompanied minors and all are either asylum seekers or refugees. Many are destitute or have access to very little benefits.

JOB DESCRIPTION

General duties and responsibilities

·  To carry out all tasks necessary to ensure the smooth running of the Baobab Centre Office.

·  To undertake general reception duties and To be the first point of contact for all enquiries, whether by telephone, email or in person, and the first point of assistance for both volunteers, young people and staff.

·  To take the lead in maintaining and developing organisational systems e.g. beneficiary database, paid staff and volunteer staff records, donor and funder data and the day-to-day management of finances.

·  To carry out the duties of a Company Secretary – taking and recording minutes of Trustees and Finance Committee Meetings, keeping company records up to date at both Companies House and the Charity Commission, ensuring all company records are clear and up-to-date to enable smooth filing of Annual Reports and Reviews each year.

·  To communicate any system changes to all staff and ensure that our wide range of part time paid and voluntary staff are aware of their record keeping responsibilities, arranging regular (every 2 months) staff/volunteer meetings to ensure communication is clear.

·  Proof-reading, typing and filing documents.

·  To undertake general reception duties, telephone answering, operating the entry-phone, greeting visitors and clients.

·  To facilitate, as necessary, communications with clients, staff, trustees and outside agencies including lawyers, clinical agencies, social services and education departments, community organisations, refugee organisations and funders.

·  To oversee and clearly communicate room allocations and timetabling across the various activities of the organisation, to organise appointments including booking interpreters.

·  To carry out administrative tasks involved in recruitment of voluntary and paid staff including assisting in the preparation of job descriptions, advertising roles, the organisation of interviews, follow up on references and carrying out DBS checks, drafting contracts, assisting in the production of induction materials and ensuring that proper induction takes place both for new volunteers and paid staff.

·  To advertise and recruit for volunteer roles as and when needed, to then coordinate and manage the work of any administrative volunteers who could help with many of the above tasks.

·  Premises management including liaison with landlord and the administrators of the landlord regarding repairs, additional room hire as necessary etc.

·  IT maintenance and support in line with experience, otherwise coordination of IT maintenance and support where necessary.

·  Maintenance and updating of the organisation’s website.

·  To provide administrative support to the Clinical Director and other Baobab Centre staff as required.

·  To suggest and set up new administrative systems where necessary (for example for the process of preparation of expert reports including clarity on timescales, charges and necessary documents).

·  To engage in regular managerial supervision with the Director.

Duties and responsibilities related to financial administration and management

·  To maintain and keep day-to-day records of income and expenditure in paper files (with a view to moving towards paperlite/paper free systems).

·  To input all income and expenditure into Quickbooks and send to the Management Aaccountant at least once a quarter for reconciliation and preparation of reports for the Board.

·  To ensure accurate and clear record -keeping of all cash expenditure, including distribution of travel expenses and hardship funds to beneficiaries and record keeping relating to floats managed by individual staff members.

·  To keep records for the purpose of claiming Gift Aid.

·  To carry out/coordinate all withdrawals, deposits and any communication with the bank as required.

·  To raise invoices and follow up their timely payment for work carried out by Baobab Centre staff.

·  To ensure that all purchase invoices received are paid, at minimum, within a month of receipt and to make authorised debit card payments where necessary.

·  To operate the payroll (3 staff) including monthly submission to HMRC using RTI and payment of PAYE/NICs.

·  To coordinate the documents required for accounts to be examined in preparation for the filing of the Annual Report.

·  To assist in the production of both Management and Fundraising budgets.

·  To raise concerns in good time with the Executive and Clinical Director and Management Accountant if current spending is above budget.

·  To produce some financial reports and small scale budgets for funding applications and as and when required by the Executive and Clinical Director.

·  To keep in regular communication with the Management Accountant and as necessary with Chair of the Board regarding financial administration.

Duties and responsibilities related to funding and fund-raising

·  To provide administrative support for the fundraiser, including the production of fundraising budgets and any financial reporting necessary, as well as ensuring they have access to all materials necessary.

·  To carry out administration required for receipt of all donations including standing orders and CAF cheques.

·  To schedule and coordinate both the payment and reporting schedules for all grants making trusts and foundations.

·  To communicate as necessary with relevant grant managers, keeping them up to date with current Annual Reports and other financial and other reporting as and when necessary.

·  To coordinate monitoring and evaluation to produce results in line with fundraising needs, both in terms of applications and reporting.

Duties and responsibilities related to clinical work

·  To build a good working relationship with all members of the team and to share responsibilitiesy to ensure that essential administrative tasks are carried out e.g. maintenance of files and attendance data and, communication with other professionals in the networks around each community member such as; e.g. GPs, Social Workers, lLawyers, eEducation tutorsproviders.

·  ; maintaining database and ensuring very part-time volunteer clinicians record attendance and clinical data and daily financial record keeping. Confidentiality of clinical material is a key issue.

·  To listen carefully and sympathetically to face-to-face, telephone and voicemail messages from a wide range of people (referrers, staff and clients), some of whom speak English in foreign accents and some of whom may be agitated, and to accurately transmit these messages.

·  To maintain and develop systems to manage the process of both referrals of clients for treatment and for expert reports and to communicate timetablesmanage the timings for the preparation of reports.

·  To develop and manage the client database so that contact details, relevant statistics and evaluation data are readily available for the Clinical Director and fundraising staff.

·  To manage client files ensuring that these are kept up-to-date by clinicians.

·  To support, remind and encourage all staff in carrying out the essential administrative tasks needed for the governance and smooth running of the Baobab Centre, particularly bearing in mind that the majority of the clinical staff are part-time, sessional and voluntary.

·  To adhere to Baobab Centre child protection, health and safety, and equal opportunities policies and to maintain confidentiality in all matters.

·  To attend the regular therapeutic community group meetings currently held every six weeks on a Saturday afternoon.

Other duties

To undertake any other duties which may be regarded within the nature of the post, as specified by the Executive/ Clinical Director

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Specification / Essential / Desirable / Method of assessment
Education /Training / Education to degree level or equivalent professional experience
Knowledge of a range of computer packages (e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, ideally Quickbooks but other accounting software essential.
Knowledge of data protection and security requirements / NVQ level 3/4 in Administration or similar or equivalent experience
ICT and word processing qualification OCR level 3 or equivalent experience / Application form; interview
Application form, test at interview, certificates
Experience / At least 2 years office management experience, preferably in a clinical environment
Experience of managing a team
Experience of financial administration such as petty cash handling, issuing and paying invoices, book-keeping using accounting software, operating payroll, including making RTI submissions to HMRC
Experience of setting up and maintaining Excel spread-sheets for financial and statistical information as well as for contact lists etc.
Knowledge of data protection and security requirements
Experience of working with people for whom English is not their first language / Experience of working in a voluntary sector organisation
Experience of recruiting and coordinating volunteers
Experience of asylum seeking or refugee issues
Experience of working with troubled children, adolescents and young adults / Application form; interview; references
Application form; interview
Skills/ Attributes / Excellent interpersonal skills with children, young people, staff and visitors
Ability to mManage, record and process confidential and, at times, upsetting information
Ability to work as a member of a team, seeking support from colleagues as appropriate
Ability to manage own workload and time and prioritise effectively with complex and competing deadlines
Proven organisational skills to include innovative, creative input
High level of accuracy and attention to detail
An excellent sense of humour / Ability to speak one or more of the commonly used refugee languages / Application form; interview
Commitment / To wWorking in ways to that promote a multicultural, multi faith environment with a genuine commitment to equal opportunities
To wWorking in ways thato promote human rights
To Wworking in a therapeutic community / Application form; interview

July 2013