As Personal Assistant to the Area Bishop for Huddersfield, you will provide comprehensive secretarial and administrative support to Bishop Smitha, enabling her to fulfil her Ministry and wider responsibilities. 

Working from the Huddersfield Episcopal Area Office at the University of Huddersfield, you will welcome visitors, keep files up to date and produce a variety of documents for the Bishop. You will work collaboratively as part of a team including the Archdeacon and their Personal Assistant and work flexibly when needed, to support events at the Bishop’s House or meetings elsewhere which will include some evenings. 

Pro-active, adaptable, with strong interpersonal skills and a high level of administrative competence, you will manage a variety of responsibilities confidently including minute taking, assisting with the recruitment process of Clergy and financial tasks and expenses. 

Your working hours are expected to be 09.00 to 14.00, Monday to Thursday. Please note, this is a 24 hours per week role. 

The salary is £17,031.08 per annum (£24,837 FTE). 

The Role 

• To provide confidential secretarial and administrative support to the Bishop.
• To welcome all who come to see the Bishop and offer tea/coffee where appropriate.
• To examine material/correspondence and co-ordinate responses; taking action on incoming mail as required i.e. prioritise, anticipate action required and prepare routine responses.
• To take a pro-active approach to ensure that the Bishop’s diary is well managed, with the programme agreed with the Bishop, ensuring that all regular external committees/ team/ Bishop’s meeting dates etc., are in the diary.
• To assist with the organisation, hospitality, secretarial servicing and minuting of committees/meetings; including preparing agenda, circulating papers, and taking minutes, as directed by the Bishop.
• To assist with ordering catering for meetings and events and the associated financial processes for these.
• To ensure that the Bishop has access to all necessary paperwork in advance of meetings/engagements in either paper or electronic format as required.
• To assist with the recruitment process of Clergy within the area, including arranging all arrangements for interviews, issuing of offer letters, etc.
• To Audio type and copy type letters, sermons, speeches, reports and other materials from the Bishop.

• To maintain a comprehensive filing system that enables ready access to correspondence, information concerning people, organisations and groups and ensure that files are maintained in compliance with the Data Protection Act.
• To develop and manage filing and office systems, manual and electronic to ensure accessibility to information and data, conducting regular audits of database input.
• To deal with day to day financial matters and expenses for the Bishop.
• To provide administrative support for a variety of activities including project work, events and meetings.

For a full job description, including person specification, please see attached.

About Us 

The Anglican Diocese of Leeds comprises five episcopal areas, each coterminous with an archdeaconry. This is now one of the largest Dioceses in the country and its creation in 2014 is unprecedented in the history of the Church of England. It covers an area of around 2,425 square miles with a population of around 2,642,400 people. The Diocese comprises major cities (Bradford, Leeds and Wakefield) large industrial and post-industrial towns (Halifax, Huddersfield and Dewsbury), market towns (Todmorden, Harrogate, Skipton, Richmond, Ripon and Wetherby) and deeply rural areas especially in the Dales. The whole of life is here, along with all the richness, diversity and complexities of a changing world.  

Five area bishops (Bradford, Huddersfield, Kirkstall, Ripon and Wakefield) and five archdeacons (Bradford, Halifax, Leeds, Richmond & Craven, and Pontefract) assist the Diocesan Bishop (The Rt. Revd Nicholas Baines)  

Our vision as a Diocese is about confident clergy equipping confident Christians to live and tell the Good News of Jesus Christ. For all our appointments we are seeking clergy who have a joyful and confident faith and with a commitment to church growth both numerical and spiritual.