Business Support Officer

Dorset Council UK; Dorchester; Hybrid; GBP 21,000 - 27,000; Full time

Job summary

Dorset Council UK is seeking a proactive Business Support Officer to join the Children’s Specialist Spoke Team. The role combines high-quality admin tasks with data entry, call handling, and maintaining collaboration across Children’s Services and partners.

You will work in a hybrid setup, with base in County Hall and virtual support from home, using Teams, Mosaic, and Synergy, and you will receive training and opportunities to shadow colleagues.

Qualifications

• Proven typing skills and accuracy in data entry.

Responsibilities

• Provide high quality business support including general admin tasks, data entry and handling correspondence.

Skills

Typing skills

Customer service

Eye for detail

Team player

Initiative

Organisational skills

Tools

Microsoft Teams

Mosaic

Synergy

Planner

Outlook

Word

Excel

Job description

Are you looking to be part of a dynamic but friendly team that provides excellent support to the children and families in Dorset?

If you are, then a fantastic opportunity has arisen to join the Children’s Specialist spoke team under the Business Support Hub. The post offers the flexibility of working in a hybrid way, providing support based in both County Hall as well as ‘virtual’ support working from home. We maintain an effective team ethic by communicating with regular team meetings as well as using Microsoft Teams to communicate throughout the day.

We supports a variety of functions within Fostering, Penalty Notices, and the wider Children’s Services Directorate. We openly support and develop each other, going out of our way to offer knowledge, time, and practical help. That means working collaboratively, sharing our expertise, and celebrating individuality and diversity through our employee networks.

We are invested in the continuous improvement and development of our staff, providing full training for the position. Working for Dorset Council also offers opportunities for career progression with working in the Business Support Hub providing an excellent start as you will be collaborating with several areas across Children’s Services and our wider stakeholders.

What You Will Be Doing

The post holder will be part of the Children's Specialist Spoke Team, responsible for delivering high quality business support around fostering primarily but also may be required to support specialist areas around attendance and penalties, digital and residential services. Tasks undertaken may include:

• Providing high quality business support e.g. general administration task, including data entry and dealing with correspondence
• Working closely with other business support colleagues to ensure a consistent approach and service delivery model is maintained across the business support teams
• Answering the phone and referring calls to the relevant officer/team and the monitoring of e-mail in-boxes
• Work in compliance with statutory obligations e.g. Data Protection
• Maintain data, gather information and ensure data quality including collection and reporting processes
• Develop and maintain working relationships with colleagues, partners and professionals
• Managing the collection of statistical data and information as required
• Supporting Strategy Tracking processes
• preparing agendas, minutes and issuing actions from panels
• Digital working and provision of 'virtual' support - the service has adopted a 'digital by default' approach as the way forward

An Induction programme is in place and training is provided along with opportunities to shadow colleagues to learn new tasks/processes. Staff are supported by their manager and other colleagues and have regular catch up meetings with their manager.

About You

The experience, knowledge and skills required for this post are specified in detail in the Person Specification. In summary we are seeking individuals who are organised, able to meet the demands of a busy work schedule and ensure deadlines are met. Along with proven typing skills you will have an eye for detail and ability to work on your own initiative as well as being an effective team member with a 'can do' attitude.

IT systems used include Microsoft packages, Teams and service specific systems such as Mosaic and Synergy. Training for service-based systems will be provided however a good working knowledge of IT including the use of Teams, Planner, Outlook, Word and Excel is essential. The role involves keyboard/computer work, but the variety of tasks supported will ensure regular opportunities for breaks away from the computer screen. Our services are customer focused and the post holder will be communicating with a wide range of stakeholders including partner agencies, families and professionals and we are looking for individuals with excellent customer service skills.

The working environment is busy and dynamic subject to interruptions to deal with queries from operational managers and staff and will involve taking telephone calls and dealing with visitors. There will occasionally be work content of a sensitive/distressing nature, particularly in teams involving direct contact with children and families. This will require resilience and confidentiality.