External Relations Assistant, Art

The British Council is the UKs international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.  We create friendly knowledge and understanding between the people of the UK and other countries. We do this by making a positive contribution to UK and the countries we work with changing lives by creating opportunities, building connections and engendering trust.

The Arts

Through our work in Arts we find new ways of connecting with and understanding each other to develop stronger creative sectors around the world. Our expert team in the UK and around the world works to five broad aims: to share UK arts with the world; to foster collaborations and networks; to build capacity in creative sectors; to foster social change; and to support the shaping of policy and research. This cultural exchange helps create modern and vibrant creative sectors, building connections, trust and opportunity. It can also help to bring together divided communities and people affected by conflict.

Our global Arts programmes include cultural seasons and festivals in countries around the world, supporting skills building and entrepreneurship, touring exhibitions of the UKs leading artists and designers, film festivals, book fairs, and dance, music and theatre performances and exchanges. 

The Team

The Executive Team is composed of the Strategy, Operations and HR teams. It forms one of the three Hubs within Arts Group, and it is represented on Arts Groups Business Management Group by all three team heads.  The Strategy Team includes communications and digital, evaluation and external relations teams, and supports strategy and communication across the global arts team.

We have a excellent opportunity for an External Relations Assistant, Arts, to administer resources, processes and systems which underpin the work of the External Relations Manager. The successful candidate will plan for two external advisory groups, organise travel, collaborate with other team assistants and support departmental relationship management.

The successful candidate must demonstrate the following essential skills and experiences: 

Experience of office administration for example organising travel, finance, correspondence, events and diary management. 

The main challenges and opportunities for this role include: (please see role profile for full details of the duties): 

Proactive and effective diary management and forward administrative planning for the external Cultural Diplomacy Group and Arts Advisory Group.

Building effective working relationships with colleagues in Strategy and External Relations, across all art form teams, across the global network and with corporate events and communications teams.

Dealing confidently and professionally with high-level senior contacts.

Management of specific small projects (e.g. stakeholder events, stakeholder grid) as and when required.

Taking accurate meeting minutes

 Equality Comment & Equality of Opportunity (UK) 

Valuing diversity is essential to the British Councils work. We aim to abide by and promote equality legislation by following both the letter and the spirit of it to try and avoid unjustified discrimination, recognising discrimination as a barrier to equality of opportunity, inclusion and human rights.  All staff worldwide are required to ensure their behaviour is consistent with our policies. 

The British Council is committed to a policy of equal opportunity and is keen to reflect the diversity of UK society at every level within the organisation. We welcome applications from all sections of the community. In line with the British Council's Child Protection policy, any appointment is contingent on thorough checks. In the UK, and in other countries where appropriate systems exist, these include criminal records checks.  

If you are interested in the role, then we would really like to hear from you. 

The closing date is Monday 9th April 2018 at 23.59pm and we are looking to hold interviews on 23rd and 25th April.