Operations Manager (maternity cover)

Role Title: Temporary Operations Manager (Maternity Cover)
Salary: £41,463.70 FTE per year (pro-rata to 4 days per week)
Contract length: 12 months (fixed term) March 2025 to March 2026
Location: Hoxton, London UK

Deadline for applications: Sunday 19th January 2025
Shortlisting / Interviews: second half of January 2025
Start Date: March 2025

Counterpoints Arts is a leading national organisation working at the intersection of arts, migration and social change. For 12 years, Counterpoints Arts has been at the vanguard of cultural commissioning and practice, supporting and producing the arts by and about migrants and refugees, ensuring that their contributions are recognized and welcomed within British arts, history and culture.

The range of Counterpoints Arts’ work has grown considerably since it was founded in 2012 and we are now seeking someone to lead on Operations Management whilst our current Operations Manager is on maternity leave. This role is key to ensuring the smooth running of our charity’s operations, including overseeing day-to-day administrative, financial, and HR functions. The successful candidate will be highly organised, proactive, and have a strong background in charity operations or a similar role within the nonprofit sector. We are particularly interested in recruiting someone whose values align with the charity's mission and overall team culture.

Counterpoints Arts aims to attract and retain talented people from all backgrounds to its team. We particularly welcome applications from those who have been historically excluded from the cultural sector, including people with lived experience of displacement, people of colour and other ethnic global majoraties, people who identify as LGBTQ+, disabled people and people from a working class background.

Other details:

• Good employee benefits, including flexible working, access to an EAP programme, individual wellbeing budget, 28 days leave including bank holidays (pro-rata) and a dedicated training budget

Responsibilities:

Overall, the role involves ensuring smooth daily operations and charity compliance, managing office administration, supporting team productivity and wellbeing, and liaising with external stakeholders and suppliers.

Finance and Fundraising:

• Ensure financial compliance and oversee bookkeeping, invoicing, and grant payments.

• Support budgeting, financial reporting, and planning with the Director.

• Monitor charity management accounts, project income, and expenditure.

• Manage year-end accounts, filing with the Charity Commission, and Company House.

• Write funding applications and reports, maintain funder relationships, and ensure grant reporting deadlines are met.

• Ensure provisional figures are submitted to various funders and entities

• Write narrative report to go alongside financial report for year end accounts

Board and Senior Management Team:

• Support the Director in preparing Board papers

• Support SMT meetings and assist the Board with reminders and actions

• Update the Risk Register every 6 months according to updates agreed at Board meetings

​HR and Policy:

• Lead on HR activities, annual leave, TOIL, pensions, and contract administration.

• Oversee payroll, recruitment, staff wellbeing, and compliance with employment law.

• Manage temporary staff and freelancers, and update HR policies as needed.

• Lead on the annual team training programme and supporting team with individual

  training ambitions

• Support all staff with wellbeing needs and help address issues with individual wellbeing.

• Organise team training, away days, and foster a positive team culture.

• Ensure staff adherence to policies (e.g., annual leave, sickness, TOIL) and promote

  inclusive work practices.

• Support with Risk Assessments and Safeguarding assessments and help respond to safeguarding concerns or incidents

• Support with Activity Planning

• Support with any placements/internships

• Organise annual DBS checks for all staff

IT:

• Manage all IT systems used by the team of staff and freelancers, including Slack and Google Workspace.

• Oversee CA website management including updates and resolving issues as needed with the web developers

• Communicate any server or IT issues promptly with the team

• Encourage best practice for cyber security to all team members and work with staff to resolve any cyber security issues that arise Compliance and Governance:

• Ensure legal and regulatory compliance, including Charity Law, Data Protection, Health & Safety and Employment Law, and support implementation of relevant policy with the Board and Senior Management Team.

Office Management:

• Manage office logistics, filing, GDPR compliance, and health and safety.

• Ensure safeguarding protocols are in place, reporting issues to the landlord/Building Manager as needed

• Manage insurance renewal and any issues with insurance throughout the year, including

  additional insurance premiums / cover and any claims

Required Experience:

• Proven experience in an operations or administrative management role within a charity, arts, or non-profit organisation.

• Strong financial literacy and experience managing budgets.

• Excellent attention to detail: Highly organised with a focus on accuracy, best practice and compliance.

• Knowledge of HR processes, including recruitment, payroll, and fostering positive work culture

• Ability to handle sensitive and confidential staff and organisational information

• Excellent organisational and project/task management skills.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

• Highly literate in IT: experienced with Word, Excel, Google Workspace, Slack, and other organisational software.

• Proactive and adaptable: able to take initiative, prioritise tasks, and adapt quickly to changing circumstances.

• Collaborative with excellent interpersonal skills, capable of working with a range of colleagues, stakeholders, suppliers and partners across the sector.

• Passionate about organisational planning and supporting teams to operate at their best.

   

Desirable Experience includes:

• Lived experience of displacement

• An interest in/passion for arts and migration

   

Values and Beliefs underpinning our work

Our work is organised around a set of core values and beliefs that guide our work and inform our decisions.

Our working culture, created through the interactions of our staff, volunteers, trustees, artists, partners and wider network, is based around the principles of mutual respect, collaboration, trust, care, generosity, transparency, accountability and deep commitment to our work.

We are dedicated to ensuring fairness and equity for all staff, regardless of their position, gender, age, race, religion, or background.

How To Apply

Please note that applicants must have a current legal right to work in the UK (this job does not qualify for the UK Skilled Worker Visa).

Please send the following documents to us by email with ‘Operations Manager (maternity cover)’ as the subject, by Sunday 19th January 2025:

• An up-to-date, comprehensive CV

• Covering letter (max one page) outlining how you meet the role and person specification criteria

• A completed Equality Diversity Form. Please download, complete and attach to your application form.

  We encourage applicants to apply even if you don’t feel like you meet every criteria, and please contact us if you have any questions or would like to arrange an informal chat about the role.

  We will review all applications and hold interviews in the second half of January 2025 with the successful candidate starting in March 2025.