Project Support Officer (Drive Partnership)

Position: Project Support Officer

Reports to: Drive Senior Project Manager

Hours: Full-time, 37.5 hours per week with flexible working hours

Salary: £28,930.26 - £30,058.55 per annum, FTE (Band C) plus £3,000 London weighting as applicable

Location: Remote based within the UK (with occasional travel across UK)

Contract: Fixed term until 31st March 2028 with possibility of extension

Benefits: A generous package including 34 days holiday per year including public holidays, pension scheme with 4% employer contribution, Cycle2Work scheme, 365 days a year Employee Assistance Programme, enhanced family leave policies, paid annual wellbeing day, eye care voucher, length of service award.

Please note: This role is employed by SafeLives, but located within The Drive Partnership’s central delivery team, and subject to matrix management.

We are SafeLives, the UK-wide charity dedicated to ending domestic abuse, for everyone, for good.

We work with organisations across the UK to transform the response to domestic abuse. We want what you would want for your best friend. We listen to survivors, putting their voices at the heart of our thinking. We look at the whole picture for each individual and family to get the right help at the right time to make families everywhere safe and well. And we challenge perpetrators to change, asking ‘why doesn’t he stop?’ rather than ‘why doesn’t she leave?’ This applies whatever the gender of the victim or perpetrator and whatever the nature of their relationship.

Last year alone, we delivered more than 700 sessions to over 15,000 learners across the UK in policing, health, housing, justice, education and the specialist sector. And we have reached 90,000 adult and 100,000 child survivors through programmes designed and delivered with partners.

In the last 9 years, close to 7,000 perpetrators have been challenged and supported to change through flagship interventions developed by our Drive Partnership and the programme continues to expand year on year.

Together we can end domestic abuse. Forever. For everyone.

The Drive Partnership, formed by Respect, SafeLives and Social Finance, is working to transform the national response to perpetrators of domestic abuse. We work to end domestic abuse and protect victims by disrupting, challenging, and changing the behaviour of those who are causing harm. Together we have developed the Drive Project to address a gap in work with high-harm, high-risk perpetrators of domestic abuse. We also work to advocate for systems and policy change to develop sustainable, national systems that respond more effectively to all perpetrators of domestic abuse. 

Partnership is fundamental to our way of working. The Drive Partnership is a second-tier organisation focusing on the continuous improvement of service models, sharing best practice and supporting specialist service providers to deliver.  

SafeLives is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff, associates and volunteers to share this commitment.

We are committed to providing equal opportunities for all, irrespective of age, disability, race, sex, religion/belief, sexuality, gender identity, marital/civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity and working patterns. We are keen to have staff that appropriately represents all the communities we serve as an organisation.

We would particularly welcome applicants from people from the following under-represented groups:

• People from racialised communities
• Deaf and Disabled people
• LGBTQ+

We believe there is no ‘them and us’ in domestic abuse and recognise that applicants may have direct or indirect experience of their own, whether disclosed or not. We are committed to placing lived experience of domestic abuse at the heart of all we do, and colleagues who chose to share their personal expertise can do so openly and with organisational support. If there is any discussion during the recruitment process regarding a candidate's personal experience of domestic abuse, it will be treated confidentially and will not be shared outside of the interview panel/People and Culture.

Project Administration

• Provide day-to-day administrative support to the Project Management Office and delivery teams as required.
• Maintain project documentation, folders, trackers, shared folders in line with Project Management Office standards.
• Maintain project action and risk logs, ensuring information is kept up to date
• Assist with monitoring project milestones, deadlines and actions
• Support the development of Project Management Office processes
• Highlight missing, overdue or inconsistent information to relevant Project Manager/Project Lead
• Ensure emails sent to the generic Drive inbox are responded to or forwarded to relevant people
• Ensure contractual arrangements are in place and appropriately filed, in line with Drive programme delivery.
• Create and manage survey links and information gathered through this mechanism

Reporting 

• Help coordinate deadlines, meetings and regular reporting cycles. 

Meetings 

• Support organisation of project and Project Management Office meetings, including scheduling, agendas and meeting materials.
• Attend meetings where required and take accurate minutes and actions. 
• Support the follow up on actions
• Circulate meeting notes and actions promptly. 

Other

• Any other duties, commensurate with the level of the role as requested by the line manager or other appropriate person.

Essential:

• Excellent MS Office skills (Especially Excel and PowerPoint)  
• Experience of providing administrative support and coordination to a team including maintaining project documentation, trackers, action logs and filing systems. 
• Experience of coordinating meetings, including scheduling, preparation of agendas and circulation of meeting papers. 
• Experience of managing shared inboxes and responding to or escalating enquiries appropriately. 
• Strong attention to detail with the ability to identify missing, overdue or inconsistent information and escalate appropriately. 
• Experience of supporting project reporting and maintaining project information 
• Experience of supporting a risk/issue management process and the ability to identify and flag up risks and issues  
• Ability to read, understand and work to project plans  
• Experience of maintaining contract documentation and records 

Desirable:

• Ability to construct and maintain project plans  
• Experience of working in delivery projects involving stakeholders from multiple organisations  
• Experience of working in (or with) the voluntary sector, local government and/or statutory agencies  
• Understanding of the challenges and opportunities within domestic abuse sector (both voluntary and statutory) as well as a wider understanding of the third sector  
• Experience of working within a Project Management Office (PMO) or project support environment. 
• Awareness of procurement and contract management processes 

Personal attributes:

• Excellent organisational skills, attention to detail and the ability to coordinate and communicate effectively within a project team and with external stakeholders 
• The ability to coordinate multiple priorities and monitor progress across a range of project and stakeholders 
• The ability to convey action points and closely monitor progress to ensure targets are met 
• A commitment to transforming the response to domestic abuse with an emphasis on holding the perpetrator to account 
• Proactive and self-motivated, with a desire to take initiative to help the project deliver its aims.