Safeguarding Administrator

Overview

Safeguarding Administrator –

Diocese in Europe The Diocese in Europe is seeking a dynamic, flexible and expert administrator to support its work particularly through the Safeguarding Team. The team provide safeguarding monitoring of clergy and volunteers across Europe. The Church of England Diocese in Europe consists of over 300 congregations in more than 142 chaplaincies (parishes) in 40 territories across Europe and beyond from Madeira in the West to Moscow and Ankara in the East and from Casablanca in the South to the Arctic Circle. It is one of the growing Dioceses in the Church of England ministering to UK Nationals living abroad and other English-speaking Christians from all over the world. The Safeguarding Team play a key role in supporting the clergy and lay leaders across the Diocese. The team also holds responsibility for investigating safeguarding concerns and delivery of safeguarding training.

The Safeguarding Team Administrator plays a key role in supporting this work in particular, by ensuring that all clergy and volunteers are compliant with the Safer Recruitment Policy requirements. The role carries responsibility for reporting performance in this area. The role is 35 hours a week based in the office in Westminster. The postholder will be part of the small, flexible, administrative support team in the London office of the Diocese and will be expected to share some tasks with the other administrator. The role is ideal for someone who likes to help make useful things happen, is not afraid of detailed administration and is motivated to work in a faith based setting.

Main Responsibilities

1. Take an active role in overseeing, prompting and ensuring the requirements for safeguarding checks across the diocese are adhered to.

2. Create and maintain central diocesan records for all safeguarding checks and to maintain appropriate systems to enable effective local record keeping across the whole diocese. This includes the use of the diocesan database and suitable spread sheets to administer the operation and the timely dissemination of safeguarding check requirements to all relevant church workers across the diocese.

3. Offer appropriate support (by email, telephone and in person) with appropriate safeguarding checks for individual church officers in chaplaincies and maintain informative dialogue with relevant Chaplaincy Safeguarding Officers.

4. Monitor safeguarding checks across the diocese and produce management information and statistics when required, including the validation of annual safeguarding audit data from all chaplaincies.

5. Oversee and process the system for safeguarding checks for all licensed Clergy, those with Permission to Officiate, Ordinands, Readers and Readers in training. (Each of these checks involves a great deal of processing of paperwork and assessing whether further supportive statements, references or certificates are needed. Each application needs to be assessed individually, but within a set of clear guidelines.)

6. Ensure all DBS applications are processed efficiently and accurately, validate monthly invoices and regularly research their management information system for useful data.

7. Maintain records to prompt three-year routine safeguarding re-checking in respect of all relevant church officers.

8. Filter enquiries about Safer Recruitment processes from chaplaincies, resolving them where possible and referring them to others only when necessary.

9. Work with clergy at all levels and nominated persons in chaplaincies (volunteers) in the compliance of the Diocesan Safeguarding Policy and Protocol in relation to Safer Recruitment.

10. To keep up to date with Church of England national policies and practice guidance on Safer Recruitment highlighting any relevant changes for consideration by the Diocesan Safeguarding Team.

11. Undertake such other reasonable duties as may be required by the Safeguarding Managers, including minuting meetings.

12. Though the role is focused on safeguarding as laid out above, the postholder will be expected to be prepared to assist with broader administration tasks in the diocesan office as required. This list is not exhaustive and is intended to reflect your main tasks and areas of work. Changes will occur over time. Travel is not normally a part of this role though any visits to the diocese will be by agreement in advance.

The Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate must have:

• Can-do attitude, flexibility and ability work alone or in a team

• Good organisation skills and the ability to prioritise and meet deadlines

• Excellent communication skills, both oral and written

• Initiative and ability to work unsupervised and under pressure

• Good eye for detail

• Excellent IT skills across Word, Excel, PowerPoint

• Ability to set up and manage remote conferencing using Zoom and Microsoft Teams

• Educated to A-level or equivalent

• Sympathy with the ethos of the Church of England Desirable:

• Some experience of servicing Boards and Committees

• General knowledge of and willingness to engage with the work or structures of the Church

About us

The postholder is employed by the Diocese in Europe Board of Finance and reports to Assistant Head of Safeguarding and has accountability to the Head of Safeguarding and the Chief Operating Officer.

We are committed to building a culturally diverse workforce. As part of this commitment, we welcome applications from people regardless of their background.

Salary: £26,000 - £27,500. The post holder will be enrolled in the Church Workers Pension Scheme. Location: Westminster (Travel in the Diocese is likely only in exceptional cases)

To Apply: Please send an application letter and a CV outlining your skills and relevant experience to the Andrew Munro, Assistant Head of Safeguarding, at europe.safeguarding@churchofengland.org. For any specific job related queries contact Andrew direct at andrew.munro@churchofengland.org. Start Date: As soon as possible Closing date: 23rd October 2022