Practice Support Manager

The Opportunity

Salary: £38,626 to £41,511 per annum

Working Pattern: Full time, 37 hours per week

Location: County Hall, Chichester and hybrid working

Reporting to a member of the Legal Services Management Team, the Practice Support Manager will provide the Team with a focused, efficient and professional support service to ensure their business support needs are met.

To help with our workforce, the role will include supporting recruitment processes, the induction of new members of staff and administering other workforce procedures such as the management of locum or agency staff arrangements.

The post holder will manage our administrative support officer, oversee various administrative arrangements for the efficient operation of the service, and prepare reports and data analysis to support the overall management of the service. Attendance at various team and management meetings will be needed to discharge these responsibilities.

What are we looking for?

You will need to be able to work independently as well as be a team player and maintain good working relationships. You will be able to communicate well both verbally and in writing at all levels and across teams. You must be organised, able to prioritise work and deliver on deadlines. You will have strong core administrative / office skills and be confident in dealing with problems and delivering solutions.

You will have good drafting, report writing and presentational skills in addition to core numeracy and familiarity with basic IT and data systems and applications.

You will use your own initiative to achieve objectives. You will grow your knowledge of the service area in order to participate in any initiatives and make improvements to processes where appropriate.

You will be able to concentrate for long periods of time and maintain a focus on attention to detail and an understanding of the need for accuracy and timeliness.

Being both adaptable and flexible, you will enjoy the challenge this role will give you to meet service needs, where you will be able to work in challenging situations and embrace new ways of working positively and effectively.

You will need to become familiar with the range of legal work delivered by the service and acquire a full understanding of the administrative operations of the County Council which are supported by Legal Services.

This will involve overseeing and managing the various systems and applications the service relies upon, including the service's Case Management Systems and on-line libraries and research tools, liaising with IT and external providers, monitoring and overseeing subscriptions and training providers, ordering of equipment and resources and assisting the Team in its budget management and business planning processes.

For more information on the Key Skills as well as the Qualifications and/or experience required, please refer to the Job Description attached. These Key Skills and Qualifications and/or experience will be used to shortlist and assess applications.

Working for us

As well as adding real value to our service users and our communities, as an employer we recognise our employees are central in being able to achieve this. To recognise this, we want to help support your development and provide a great place to work ensuring you can fulfil your full potential, have access to a range of benefits including:

• an excellent local government pension scheme
• generous holiday entitlement of 30 days (plus opportunity to buy additional leave)
• a range of flexible working options, depending on your job role
• maternity, paternity, dependency, and adoption leave
• volunteering opportunities
• training and development opportunities, including coaching and mentoring
• a range of discounts giving our staff access to hundreds of offers; groceries, travel, cinema tickets, days out, leisure activities, high street retailers and the opportunity to save over £1,000 a year through our West Sussex Choices benefits platform (see our Staff discounts page if you are a business looking to offer a discount)
• health and wellbeing benefits including access to our Employee Assistance Programme, Mental Health First Aiders and Voluntary Health Cash Plans

For a full list this can be found at our Rewards and Benefits page.

Further information

The reference number for this role is CRS00944

For an informal conversation or for further information regarding the role, please contact Richard Pearce at For issues or queries regarding your application please contact .

To apply, please follow the links below to upload your CV and Cover Letter. In your cover letter please outline your motivations for applying and explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role (please refer to the key skills) ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV. Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people, and vulnerable adults. This post is subject to 3 years' worth of references and health check.

Equity, inclusion, and accessibility is very important to West Sussex County Council. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, as this helps us build a diverse and talented workforce, that reflects the communities we serve. We ensure our approach to recruitment is flexible and supportive to enable all applicants to be at their best and to ensure they have the best possible chance of success.

We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants that have a disability, are a veteran or are a care leaver. More information can be found on our application help page.