Salary: £25,989 – £26,824 pro rata (£15,452 - £15,949 per annum) pay award pending
Hours: Part time, 22 hours per week
Contract: Permanent
Closing date: 31st August 2026
Interview date: 7th September 2026
Location: Flexible. An office base in one of the offices within the Adoption West region (Bristol, Gloucester or Trowbridge) and working from home
Adoption West is a regional adoption agency and registered voluntary adoption agency that provides adoption services for Bath & North East Somerset, Bristol, Gloucestershire, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire and Wiltshire Councils. Adoption West operates out of 3 hubs across the region, with offices based in Bristol, Gloucester and Trowbridge.
This is an exciting time for you to join Adoption West as you will help us build on our achievements and will play a central role in the administration of adoption panels and decision making. You will provide a confidential, secretarial minute taking and admin support service to Adoption West’s Adoption Panels and other meetings as required. Panels are held frequently and the post holder is responsible for ensuring agendas are efficiently arranged, quoracy is maintained and that statutory guidelines and timescales are met.
You will be part of the wider Business Support Team, ensuring that all administration systems and processes are maintained and developed to meet the performance needs of the service. The role will also provide secretarial support for confidential and sensitive matters relating to various investigations, providing a fully responsive and flexible business support service within the department.
Key responsibilities are to:
- Prepare and plan agendas for statutory Adoption Panels. Co-ordinating papers to ensure members have everything required to make safe recommendations to the Agency Decision Maker in relation to adopter approvals and adoption placements
- To attend and take full, formal and detailed minutes of the confidential Adoption Panels which are a statutory requirement. Minutes produced are distributed within and outside the organisation, forming part of a child’s record.
- To attend and take full minutes of other confidential meetings.
- To initiate and maintain systems for the recording of panel items and changes to data as required.
- Liaise with all attendees of meetings and act as the contact point for communications. Attendees may be internal or external to the organization. Actions to be taken will include agreeing Panel member attendance to ensure quoracy and equity of attendance across the year; management of agenda items to ensure Panels run efficiently – including postponing or replacing items.
- Finding solutions to unexpected problems such as Panel quoracy, missing paperwork, unexpected gaps in agendas
- To organise and book the Adoption Panels, along with co-ordinating independent and internal panel members’ attendance to ensure quoracy.
- Responsibility for the organisation of associated activities relating to Adoption Panels such as conferences, annual events, training days, etc; undertaking all associated activities (e.g. booking of venues, refreshments etc)
- assist the wider service in providing an effective and efficient administrative support function
- answer routine enquiries from service users, and internal and external customers, and ensure that enquiries are responded to professionally and relayed accurately
- ensure confidentiality is maintained at all times within the service area
- maintaining systems / spreadsheets as appropriate to aid monitoring processes and enable the production of accurate records.
Please note we use generic role profiles which cover a wide range of functions some of which may not be relevant to this specific position but give an overall sense of the possible requirements of the role.
The post will report to the Business Support Officer.
You will need:
- Educated to A Level standard
- RSA Stage II Word Processing or equivalent
- NVQ Level II/III Business Administration or equivalent
- Some experience of secretarial and administrative experience
- Ability to meet deadlines and prioritise workload
- Ability to forge and maintain good working relationships with others, at all levels.
- Ability /Confidence to meet difficult situations with a calm and mature attitude and find solutions to unexpected problems
- Able to undertake research and analysis of specific topics, without supervision
- Able to attend meetings, and produce accurate, succinct, record/minutes
- Proficient in use of Microsoft packages, internet, Powerpoint, Excel, etc
- High levels of accuracy and attention to detail
- Good Audio Typing skills
Adoption West:
- is an organisation with a wealth of experience and has a learning culture, committed to enabling the post holder to grow and develop in their role.
- provides support through supervision and training.
- offers flexible working arrangements, including job shares
- provides a Local Government Pension Scheme
If you have the experience, skills, knowledge and enthusiasm we are seeking and are looking for a new challenge then we look forward to hearing from you.
For an informal discussion please contact:
Catherine Bull, Business Support Officer on 03303 550333.
All candidates applying for Adoption West roles are assessed against the Behaviour Principles and Values during the interviewing process.
Role Description
