Business Support Officer - East and Purbeck Locality

About the role

Are you an experienced Business Support professional who thrives on organisation, leadership and making a real difference?

We're looking for a motivated and proactive Business Support Lead to play a key role within the Children's Spoke of our Business Support Hub, supporting teams across the East Dorset and Purbeck locality.

This is an opportunity to lead and shape how business support is delivered, ensuring our frontline services have the high-quality support they need to help children, young people and families.

As Dorset Council continues its journey to become a modern, sustainable authority, you'll be at the heart of driving improvements, embracing digital solutions and helping deliver efficient, consistent services.

Why join us?

In this role you'll:

• take on a key leadership position with the opportunity to influence and improve business support services
• make a meaningful contribution to services that support children, young people and families
• help drive innovation, modernisation and new ways of working
• work in a supportive, collaborative environment that values fresh ideas and continuous improvement
• be part of an organisation guided by its values of Respect, Togetherness, Accountability, Openness and Curiosity

What you'll be doing

You'll:

• lead the delivery of business support across the East Dorset and Purbeck locality
• ensure teams receive high-quality, efficient and consistent administrative support
• coordinate workloads and priorities to maintain excellent service delivery
• support, supervise and develop staff within the team
• build strong relationships with colleagues and stakeholders across Children's Services
• oversee key administrative activities, including meetings, correspondence, systems and financial processes
• identify opportunities to improve processes and adopt digital solutions
• ensure compliance with council policies, data quality standards and confidentiality requirements

About you

We're looking for someone who:

• is highly organised and able to manage competing priorities
• communicates confidently and builds effective working relationships
• has strong administrative experience, ideally in a complex or public sector setting
• is comfortable using Microsoft 365 and other digital systems
• has excellent attention to detail and a professional approach
• has experience leading or supervising staff, or is ready to take the next step into leadership
• works well independently and as part of a team
• is enthusiastic about continuous improvement and embracing new ways of working

If you're passionate about delivering excellent support services and want to make a positive impact on children's services across Dorset, we'd love to hear from you.

This post requires significant travel. You must have a vehicle (or transport we deem suitable) available for use as needed.

This post involves working with children and/or vulnerable adults and/or having access to significant information about them. It will be subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service check. See our policy on the employment of ex-offenders.

About Us

We're passionate about making Dorset a great place to live, work and visit. Working for us should be no exception.

• provide more than 450 services to over 300,000 residents
• have ambitious aspirations
• are excited about our future
• care about Dorset and all the people who live here
• know that all roles make a difference and that our employees are key to our success

You will:

• have access to a range of employee benefits
• be part of an organisation that supports each other to grow and succeed
• have access to range of training opportunities which will help with your personal development and career progression

We are challenging ourselves to become a more diverse and inclusive organisation. We recognise that recruitment and inclusion of individuals with diverse skills, perspectives and backgrounds will bring real strength to the council and our communities. We have a commitment to equality and welcome applications from everyone.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We offer an interview to everyone who declares a disability and meets the essential criteria for the role. We are keen to make our interviews accessible. Let us know on your job application if you have a disability and need any reasonable adjustments.

We also look for applicants who share our commitment to our values. We will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process.

This role is UK based and we will need to establish your Right to Work as part of the appointment process.

We use generic job descriptions and person specifications. This means the job title on any attachments may differ from the job title in the advert. We may provide specific information in a context statement if relevant.