Executive Support Officer
Job Description
Job summary
Join a purpose-driven organisation where your work will help enable outstanding compassionate care across Somerset.
At St Margaret's Hospice, our people are at the heart of everything we do. We're looking for an Executive Support Officer to provide proactive, high-level support to our Executive Team.
This is a varied and rewarding role where no two days are the same. You'll work closely with senior leaders, trustees and colleagues across the organisation, helping ensure the smooth running of key leadership and governance activity across the hospice.
- Salary: £18,368 per annum (FTE £30,205 p.a.)
- Working Pattern: 22.5hours per week. With flexibility, this could be worked over 4 or 5 days (Monday to Friday).
- Contract: Permanent, Part time
- Location: Taunton or Yeovil with occasional travel required to the other site.
- Hybrid Working: Option to work up to half the week at home
The Interview Process
Interviews will take place in person at our Taunton Hospice and will include:
- Competency-based interview questions
- A planning exercise
- A minute-taking exercise
These activities are designed to reflect the type of work involved in the role and help us understand your skills and experience.
Main duties of the job
This is a pivotal role supporting the Executive Team and wider organisation through professional, proactive and compassionate executive support.
You'll help senior leaders operate effectively by anticipating needs, managing competing priorities and ensuring meetings, communications and governance processes run smoothly and efficiently.
Your responsibilities will include:
- Providing proactive executive support to senior leaders, including complex diary, inbox and meeting management
- Preparing high-quality agendas, reports, presentations, briefing papers and correspondence
- Coordinating Board, committee and leadership meetings, including minute taking and action tracking
- Supporting governance processes and maintaining accurate records and documentation
- Organising stakeholder meetings, events and leadership activities while building strong collaborative relationships across the organisation
- Supporting organisational projects and continuous improvement.
About us
Our Values
At St Margaret's Hospice, our values guide everything we do. We are:
- Compassionate: Kindness and care for everyone, every day
- Collaborative: One team, working together for one goal
- Ambitious: Striving for better, now and into the future.
If these values resonate with you, we'd love to hear from you.
Why join St Margaret's Hospice?
You won't just be joining a fantastic team you'll become part of a welcoming, community-minded charity making a real difference every day.
We offer a supportive and inclusive working environment alongside a range of benefits including:
Holiday entitlement
- 33 days holiday including bank holidays, rising to 35 days after 1 year and increasing with length of service (pro rata for part-time employees)
- Ability to buy and sell annual leave
Pension scheme
- NHS employees may be eligible to continue their NHS pension scheme*
- Non-NHS employees receive 6% employer and 5% employee contributions
Employee Assistance Programme
Including:
- 24/7 GP consultations
- Wellbeing and health support
- Confidential counselling
- Legal, financial and medical advice
- Expert case management support for employees and families
Additional benefits
- Life assurance cover (2x salary)
- Health Cash Plan
- Blue Light Card discounts
- Enhanced maternity leave*
- Excellent learning and development opportunities
- Free onsite parking at Taunton and Yeovil
- Opportunities to volunteer and support fundraising initiatives
*Eligibility criteria apply
Job responsibilities
Job Purpose
To provide a high standard of professional, proactive and confident executive support to the CEO and wider Executive Team, and to provide high-quality governance administration to enable the Board and its committees to operate effectively.
The postholder will act as a trusted first point of contact for the CEO/Executive, manage competing priorities with discretion, and ensure meetings, papers, actions and stakeholder communications are coordinated accurately and on time - supporting the hospice to deliver its strategic vision and ambitions, regulatory compliance and outstanding care for the community of Somerset.
Responsibilities
Support of the CEO & Executive Team
- Provide high-level diary and inbox management, anticipating needs, prioritising appropriately and ensuring the CEO/Executive are fully briefed.
- Coordinate internal and external meetings, visits and events; arrange travel and accommodation where required.
- Prepare, collate and quality-check briefing packs, presentations and correspondence; draft routine responses and communications on behalf of the CEO/Executive.
- Record, track and follow up actions arising from Executive meetings, ensuring deadlines and owners are clear and updates are captured.
- Act as a professional first point of contact for the CEO/Executive Team, fielding enquiries sensitively and coordinating timely responses.
- Handle confidential and sensitive information with the highest level of discretion, ensuring appropriate storage, access control and retention.
Board, Committee & Governance Support
- Plan the annual cycle of Board and committee meetings, in partnership with the Chair, Committee Chairs, CEO and governance lead.
- Coordinate agendas, papers and meeting packs to agreed deadlines; ensure documentation is accurate, complete and appropriately approved.
- Attend Board/committee meetings as required to take accurate minutes, record decisions and maintain clear action logs.
- Chase actions and provide assurance that decisions are communicated and implemented, escalating risks or slippage appropriately.
- Support trustee recruitment, appointment and induction administration (including documentation, training records and declarations of interest), working with the Chair and Director of People, Development & Governance.
- Maintain governance records and registers as required (e.g., terms of reference, attendance, declarations), ensuring version control and audit-ready filing, supporting the Company Secretary to meet necessary regulations.
- Support preparation for and follow-up from regulator/assurance activity as needed (e.g., Charity Commission, CQC-related governance evidence), working with relevant leads.
- Provide assistance with corporate governance administrative duties as required liaising with the Head of Governance.
Corporate, Office & Systems Support
- Maintain efficient and secure electronic filing and information-management systems for CEO/Executive and governance documentation, including retention and disposal in line with policy.
- Ensure meeting logistics are in place (rooms, hybrid set-up, refreshments, accessibility requirements, and technology support), liaising with internal teams such as Estates and IT as needed.
- Process Executive/Board expenses, invoices and purchasing requests in line with financial controls; allocate cost codes and maintain accurate records.
- Provide administrative and project support to key corporate workstreams (e.g., strategy delivery, quarterly KPIs, estates programme, inclusion work, stakeholder engagement) including tracking actions, preparing papers and coordinating input.
- Contribute to continuous improvement of administrative processes, templates and ways of working (including the effective use of Microsoft 365 tools such as Teams and SharePoint).
- Offer flexible cover/support during peak periods, including occasional support to reception/front-of-house arrangements as required.
Events, Engagement & Stakeholder Communications
- Support planning and delivery of key corporate events such as the AGM, Long Service Awards, Board development sessions and leadership engagement events, ensuring actions and communications are coordinated.
- Preparation, administration and minute taking of wider organisation meetings, for example Armed Forces Project Work, Our Voice, Inclusion & Culture Programme.
- Coordinate ...
