Parish Administrator and Bookkeeper

We are recruiting a Parish Administrator/Bookkeeper for our Clapton parish who will support the Parish Priest and his team in the efficient running of the parish. You will be responsible for co-ordinating parish communications, undertaking the day-to-day administration of the parish, and aiding in the organisation and support of both liturgical and other events. You will take responsibility for the various parish baptisms, weddings and funeral registers and deal with the requests for information and certificates, whilst also undertaking the diary management of parish appointments and events - thus giving the opportunity to make a real difference in your community by facilitating these events. Furthermore, you will have responsibilities surrounding the parish accounts and planned giving. Utilising the Diocesan database "OPAS", you will enter all income and expenditure, and also complete monthly bank reconciliations to ensure that the accounts are accurate and up to date. Additionally, you will administer the Gift Aid system for the parish on "OPAS", leading to the production of the year-end 'Turnaround' report for the Diocese. This means there's lots to get involved in - and to be excited about.

You'll love working in a front-of-house role, with an acute attention to detail, and will have excellent communication skills both written and verbally. To be successful in this role, you will need to be able to work methodically, and thrive both in a small team and when working independently. Additionally, you will have excellent organisational skills, and an innate ability to prioritise your workload efficiently. The successful candidate will play a pivotal role for the Hammersmith parish team, and will be an individual with experience working within a responsible role within a similar position of office administration. As a flexible, compassionate and discreet-minded individual, you will be able to support the Parish Priest in the pastoral function with administrative tasks, such as community-based fundraising events. It is not required for the successful candidate to be a practicing Roman Catholic. The team consists of a good mix of those with a Catholic faith and those of other faiths or none. What we require above all else is that you respect the values we share to help others and support decent and dignified work for all without prejudice.

Situated in the deanery of Hackney, the Parish of Clapton was founded in 1862, the Church of St Scholastica was built in 1962 and consecrated in 1987., We are the Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster, a faith-based charity with offices close to Victoria Train and Underground Station and just a short walk from St James Park and Westminster Underground stations. We are home to the Archbishop of Westminster (Cardinal Vincent Nichols) & our beautiful Westminster Cathedral. We are one of the leading Catholic dioceses in the country, delivering our charitable mission through our network of 208 schools in which over 90,000 pupils attend daily, 212 parishes and several hundred social justice initiatives. We seek to positively impact the lives of all members of society., The Diocese of Westminster is an Equal Opportunities and accredited Living Wage employer. To be successful, we aspire to be person centered at all times and place human dignity at our centre. We aim at all times to recruit the person who is best suited to the job, and we welcome applications from all communities and underrepresented groups, regardless of race, sexual orientation, disability, faith, age and gender. We guarantee an interview to disabled candidates who meet the minimum criteria. We strive to take a holistic approach to the development of our people so that we may better serve and empower the mission of our Church as ministered by the parishes, deaneries, schools and communities that we support. Our ambition is to work together to promote a more inclusive environment, which attracts all candidates and signals our commitment to celebrating and promoting diversity. We want people from all walks of life to feel valued for their individuality, thrive in our organisation, share a sense of belonging and demonstrate our values. With this in mind, we positively celebrate Diversity & Inclusion at the Diocese of Westminster and place it at the heart of our aim which is to reflect and connect with the diverse communities that we serve. Actions we take to provide equality of opportunity for all candidates include:

• We anonymise application forms during our shortlisting process to ensure that candidates are assessed without any consideration of their name, gender or background.
• As part of this anonymisation, we don't take into consideration where candidates studied, or the method of that study e.g. full-time, part-time or distance learning.
• We apply a consistent approach to our question setting across our applications and interviews to ensure that everyone is assessed against the identified values, competencies and job requirements. Our values are important to us and as such we use a scoring framework that marks candidates based on values, behaviours and competencies.
• We provide guidance and brief all our interviewers throughout the selection processes in recruitment best-practice to mitigate against any potential for conscious or unconscious bias or discrimination. Whenever possible we will have multiple interviewers when assessing each candidate to ensure marking is accurate and fair.
• We ensure all our assessment venues are accessible. We offer alternative formats of our application forms to encourage applicants with disabilities or who require reasonable adjustments to perform at their best.
• We will work together with candidates with a disability or health condition to implement reasonable adjustments to enable them to feel comfortable and strive during the assessment process.
  
  In return for your hard work and commitment to us, you will receive a competitive reward package which will include, but is not limited to:
• Life Assurance
• Access to Healthcare Cash Plan
• Discounts scheme through Reward Gateway - shopping, restaurants, cinema tickets gift cards and much more
• Specsavers Eyecare Vouchers
• Season Ticket Loan
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Access to low cost loans with Churches Mutual
• Employee assistance programme- free, independent 24/7 help and advice for work-related issues as well as problems affecting home life