The Bank of England is the UK's central bank. Our mission is to deliver monetary and financial stability for the British people. The Bank of England is a diverse organisation. Each of its 4,000 plus people are committed to public service and dedicated to promoting the good of the people of the United Kingdom by maintaining monetary and financial stability.

Directorate Overview

The Finance, Change and Value Directorate plays a critical role in protecting the Bank's financial position and reputation. The overall purpose of the Directorate is to contribute to the successful execution of the Bank's aims and objectives by ensuring it has an appropriate financial platform for its broader responsibilities, and for the challenges facing an organisation of more than 4,000 staff, with annual expenditure of circa £700m.

The Finance Directorate has three Divisions, Financial Control and Reporting, Financial Performance and Corporate Portfolio Office.

Job Description

This is a permanent Personal Assistant (PA) to support the Finance ED Office.  You will need to work proactively and use your initiative, working with the Executive Director's Private Secretary to effectively manage the Executive Director's office. The job entails providing full PA, secretarial and administrative support to the Executive Director, including pro-actively prioritising their daily schedule, workload, calendar, and Manager to x1 HoD PA.

This is an exciting opportunity to play a pivotal role in the functioning of the Directorate's office. This is an important, challenging and exciting role, with exposure to high level contacts - both internal and external.

This is an opportunity for an experienced well-organised PA to undertake challenging work, beyond routine secretarial tasks. There will be a need for the jobholder to be pro-active and to work autonomously, with a high degree of responsibility for the organising of key functions.

Job requirements

Your primary role will be to support the work of the CFO. Responsibilities include:

• Providing a professional administrative service to the CFO, assembling and disseminating information on their behalf and progressing actions as appropriate
• Tracking actions-ensuring that they completes their tasks, in conjunction with the PS
• Working closely with the CFO to ensure that priorities are met on a daily basis including actions and conflicting diary invites
• Creating the directorate’s events. Helping to keep the ED appropriately engaged with the whole team and to ensure that all meetings are arranged around the different priorities for Finance
• Keeping on top of paper flows and e-mails, noting immediate action and dealing with those when necessary
• Extensive and complex diary management; using judgement on which meetings take priority and ensuring commitments are managed smoothly and effectively to maximise use of time, and that associated arrangements (e.g. travel plans and briefing requests) operate efficiently
• Arranging meetings/events/away days (both internal/ external), including booking meeting rooms, preparing and circulating agendas and meeting papers, greeting visitors to the Bank, taking minutes and circulating follow up documentation as appropriate
• Managing meeting papers for the CFO including coordinating briefings, managing bring forward/pending system and chasing actions from others where necessary
• Ensure the CFO receives correct papers/information in daily pack for meetings (using OneNote)
• Acting as a point of contact for the CFO’s Office, which includes liaising with senior internal and external stakeholders and their offices, in person and via telephone
• Managing the Leadership Teams leave to ensure appropriate cover at all times
• Investigating issues and resolving queries(escalating/advising CFO as appropriate) and ensuring full communication with contacts/Division as relevant
• Manage the information flow and communication across the Directorate, leveraging the Directorate Bank Exchange site and Collaborate
• Working closely with colleagues in the CFO’s office ensuring a professional and joined-up office ensuring the office runs smoothly and is well represented
• Arranging domestic/foreign travel processing expense claims and Barclaycard statements
• Assist with recruitment across the Directorate, booking interviews, leveraging Taleo and liaison with H Rand Security to ensure timely on-boarding of candidates
• E-filing {Filesite) maintenance and managing confidential data in a professional and secure manner
• Assisting with writing and compilation of executive presentations and reports
• Line Manager responsibilities for HoD PA
• General administrative tasks, including intra Directorate stationary, ordering catering. raising/receipting invoices and managing the Gifts and Entertainment returns, to assist the smooth running of the Directorate.

Essential Criteria

• Excellent secretarial skills with a sound knowledge of all Microsoft Office programmes, in particular Outlook, Word, MS Teams and OneNote
• Track record of demonstrating strong organisational skills, working accurately and efficiently to tight deadlines and handling confidential market sensitive information
• Prior experience of managing the diary of a Director, including co-ordinating key meetings/conference calls with internal and external stakeholders both domestically and sometimes internationally. Includes initiating agendas, and ensuring papers are ready when required.
• Excellent communication skills with ability to confidently deal with all levels of staff across the Bank and externally.
• An ability to keep calm under pressure, providing a reliable, professional service.

Behavioural Criteria

• Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to build good working relationships and networks both internally and externally
• High level of accuracy and attention to detail
• A positive, can-do attitude; ability to be proactive and a willingness to learn
• Good team player, with ability to push forward change and offer suggestions in order to improve efficiency and effectiveness when running the Division.

The Bank values diversity and inclusion – we want to reflect the society we serve better, we want the best people to work for us and we want our workplace to be inclusive.  We value all forms of diversity, including but not limited to age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, race, religion and sexual orientation.  One way we support diversity and inclusion is through our staff-run networks, which are summarised here.

We are fully committed to having a diverse and inclusive working environment, and are open to considering how the role might be carried out with flexible working.  This role is therefore open to flexible working patterns. 

We are also committed to making adjustments for candidates and employees where possible, and have partnered with external expert organisations to support us in this.  We are a member of the Disability Confident scheme, summarised here, and people who wish to apply under this scheme should check the box in the ‘Candidate Personal Information’ under the ‘Disability Confident Scheme’ section of the application.

We anonymise applications so hiring managers will not be able to see your personal information when reviewing your submission, including your CV. Please fully complete the application form questions as requested, as any incomplete submissions may not be reviewed.

The Bank of England is a distinctive institution and our rewards are one of the things that set us apart. As well as enjoying a competitive salary you will work in a collaborative, inclusive environment, with a subsidised restaurant, flexible working opportunities and plenty of wellbeing initiatives.  

This specific role offers a base salary of £28,000 - £36,000 per annum, along with our comprehensive benefits package as follows:

•    A non-contributory, career average pension giving you a guaranteed retirement benefit of 1/95th of your annual salary for every year worked. There is the option to increase your pension (to 1/50th) or decrease (to 1/120th) in exchange for salary through our flexible benefits programme each year.
•    A discretionary performance award based on a current award pool.
•    A 7% benefits allowance with the option to take as salary or purchase a wide range of flexible benefits.
•    25 days annual leave with option to buy up to 13 additional days through flexible benefits.
•    Private medical insurance and income protection.