Governance Specialist

About the job

Key information

• 37 hours per week
• This role offers hybrid working, allowing you to work either from home or from one of our offices
• 28 days’ annual leave (plus bank holidays)

What will I be doing?

This is a great opportunity to support local democracy, work alongside our 110 councillors and senior officers across Somerset Council, as well as providing advice and information to the public. We are looking for a highly motivated person to join our Democratic & Governance Services.

As a Governance Specialist, you will be leading a number governance and business support activities at the centre of the Council. One of your main areas of focus will be ensuring there is good quality support and advice as part of convening over 400 school admission, exclusion and transport appeal hearings per annum.

We’re working to improve the lives of people here in Somerset – and you’ll be a key part of that. Your day-to-day work will involve:

• Convening and organising the administration and support for school admission, exclusion and transport appeal hearings.
• Ensuring supporting for some of the Council’s hybrid committee meetings and informal meetings involving councillors and officers across Somerset.
• Supporting our councillors to carry out their roles effectively, including their training and development.
• Providing advice to councillors, senior managers and the public regarding decision making and our democratic arrangements.

What kind of experience or qualifications do I need?

We offer ongoing support, training and guidance to help you be the best you can be. But it will really help if you:

• Knowledge and ideally experience of convening and administering school admission, exclusion and transport appeal hearings
• Knowledge and ideally experience of local government and the delivery of its committee meetings
• An effective Can-Do attitude, responding calmly and effectively to problems and seeks solutions.
• Analyse documents or discussions and extract and summarise the key points.
• Demonstrate strong communication skills, political sensitivity, effective prioritisation skills and an ability to work well in a team.
• The ability to prepare reports, documents, sometimes of a complex nature, involving research, analysis and report writing skills.
• A range of IT skills ranging from basic word processing including text/letter creation to knowledge of corporate software and systems such as Microsoft Office.
• Experience of managing office records management systems
• The Council champions digital innovation and smarter ways of working. Experience of virtual/hybrid meeting and webcasting technology would be a bonus.

We’re proud to be here for the people of Somerset. And that means everyone in Somerset. An important part of this is ensuring that we are as diverse and inclusive as the people and communities we serve.

We welcome applications from a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences to enrich our team. You can always contact the hiring manager for a chat if there’s anything you want to talk about before you apply.

What is in it for me?

We are proud to offer an environment that is supportive and rewarding, working as part of a team who are passionate about the work they do to improve the lives of people in Somerset.

We offer great training and development opportunities, with supportive management. As well as this, we have some fantastic employee benefits available:

• We promote a healthy work-life balance and offer flexible working arrangements wherever possible, including working from home.
• Generous annual leave allowance, with the opportunity to purchase additional leave
• Staff discounts in gyms.
• Employee Assistance for the times you may need some support and a variety of employee wellbeing services.
• Auto enrolment onto our generous Pension Scheme and optional pension enhancement through our Additional Voluntary Contribution scheme.
• A Flexible Benefits Scheme via salary sacrifice to obtain a cycle for work and health screenings.
• My Staff Shop offering discounts in shops, online shopping, restaurants, cinema tickets, insurance benefits and more

Supporting documents and information

For an informal chat about the role, you can contact Scott Wooldridge, Head of Democratic & Governance Services on 01823 359043.

The salary for this role is £40,476 – £44,711 per annum

When completing your application/CV please provide your full employment history and ensure that any gaps in employment are explained. Please start with your current or most recent employment.

If you have all the information you need, just hit the apply button – we can’t wait to hear from you.

Apply on the Somerset Council website

Apply now