Senior Aide to the Chief Officer
Job Description
An exciting opportunity has arisen to provide high quality, efficient and effective support, and advice to the Chief Officer, as their Senior Aide. In this role you will work closely with the Chief Officer’s direct reports supporting the achievement of their objectives, act as a conduit to help ensure effective information flow to aid decision making as well as draft communications for and on behalf of the Chief Officer.
About the team
Chief officer
Our Chief Officer is Mary Harpley. As the Head of the GLA’s corporate leadership team, our Chief Officer assumes responsibility as Head of Paid Service for the strategic management of GLA activity and functions.
Executive Support Team
The Executive Support Team support the Mayor’s Office and Corporate Management Team in all aspects of their work.
What will your day look like
• Provide high-quality strategic support, challenge, and advice to the Chief Officer, ensuring that their time is used effectively, including through strategic oversight of the diary, to enable the Chief Officer to deliver their wide-ranging responsibilities.
• Produce, contribute to and commission briefings, presentations, speeches, reports, draft emails, letters, actions from Committee meetings, written updates, and internal communications.
• Ensure that the Chief Officer is tuned into emerging/sensitive/significant issues and developments across the GLA; that information arrives at the right point in the decision-making process and actions are followed up and delegated to the relevant part of the organisation.
• Establish and maintain strong collaborative relationships with the Mayor’s Office and the senior leadership team within the GLA to advance priorities in a coordinated manner, broker resolutions where there are conflicting views and to ensure that the Chief Officer is sighted on issues as they arise within the relevant areas and the wider organisation.
• Connect and integrate work streams, finding synergies and preventing siloed working.
• Ensure relevance and correct prioritisation of agenda items for high-level committees and working groups chaired or attended by the Chief Officer, working closely with the committee secretaries; prepare annotated agendas and paper summaries carefully considering options, implications, and risks of decisions.
Skills, knowledge, and Experience
To be considered for the role you must meet the following essential criteria:
• A strong understanding and experience of the support and advice required by the most senior decision-makers in an organisation and the pressures and dynamics of working in a complex political organisation.
• Demonstrable experience of being able to juggle competing priorities and difficult challenges in a logical manner, often taking sound judgement in an uncertain environment.
• Strong analytical skills to probe arguments and understand the quality and limitations of information from different sources and propose options and/or recommendations.
• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to generate trust, confidence and to be able to influence beyond authority.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, with experience of drafting communications to the highest level, with excellent standards of accuracy, consistency, and attention to detail.
How to apply
If you would like to apply for the role you will need to submit the following:
- Up to date CV
Supporting statement with a maximum of 1500 words. Please ensure you address how you demonstrate the essential criteria outlined above in the advert.
Assessment process
Once you have applied, your details will be reviewed by a panel.
If shortlisted all applications will be invited to an interview.
Interviews will be held 19th / 20th December 2023. (Subject to change)
Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion
London’s diversity is its biggest asset, and we strive to ensure our workforce reflects London’s diversity at all levels. We welcome applications from everyone regardless of age, gender, gender identity, gender expression, ethnicity, sexual orientation, faith, or disability.
We particularly encourage applications from Black, Asian and Minority ethnic candidates and disabled candidates who are currently underrepresented in our workforce.
We are committed to being an inclusive employer and we are happy to consider flexible working arrangements.
Please note we are a Disability Confident Employer so for candidates who wish to be considered under the scheme and meet the essential criteria, they will automatically be invited to interview. Please note, should you require any adjustments through the process, we will accommodate as much as possible. Please contact the recruitment team for further information if required.
In addition to a good salary package, we offer an attractive range of benefits including 30 days’ annual leave, interest free season ticket loan, interest free bicycle loan and a career average pension scheme.
We will make every effort to give you as much notice as possible, however some interviews/assessments could be organised at short notice.
