Executive Administrative Assistant
Dispute Resolution Authority
Total years of experience :14 years, 5 Months
• Provide executive level administrative support to the Deputy CEO, Chief Operating Officer and resident Judges.
• Coordinate an administrational team of 6 people, providing leadership, ensuring high levels of customer satisfaction are maintained and continuously improved upon to obtain a UAE 7-star customer service rating.
• Demonstrated an ability to improve procedures with the implementation of printing facilities to cater for confidentiality issues, implementation of a data retention policy and on site disposal of confidential documents.
• Planned, lead and delivered, on time and on budget, the launch of the DRA Arbitration Suite, providing a substantial, ongoing regular income stream into the organisation and essential arbitration hearing rooms to the DIFC legal community.
• Manage multiple service level agreements with businesses operating within the DIFC to ensure administrational services such as HR, IT and Finance fall within the KPI set out in the agreements. Maintaining relationships with parties to continue providing services to a high level.
• Responsible for the maintenance and issuance of over 3000 licenses and permits annually, managing an administrational team of 6 people on a day to day basis.
• Prepared and delivered comprehensive reporting and presented detailed evidence to the Licensing Committee on a monthly basis representing licence applicants, providing critical legal advice to Committee members in relation to policy requirements.
• Liaised with Gloucestershire Constabulary to undertake risk assessment and determine appropriate actions requiring implementation with regard to public order, crowd control, transport logistics, terrorist threat, and other potential flashpoints that could possibly occur during major sporting events such as the Cheltenham Festival.
• Fully responsible for the recruitment and training of all new staff members whilst monitoring and reporting on team standards and performance targets.
• Directed Public Relation departments to develop communication strategies relating to licensing issues in the public domain that could potentially damage the image of the authority and prepared information for the media relating to licensing policy, procedures, public education and the right of appeal.
• Enhanced the digital landscape of the department by implementing a paperless system, providing a comprehensive archive of documents dating back to 1990. Available for both staff and the public to view via a public access system, enabling the public to view previous and existing applications, object to Licensing Act 2003 applications and comment on consultations within the designated time frame.
• Selected to be a key member of the Gloucestershire Licensing Officers Group (GLOG), a government backed “Think Tank” and Leadership initiative, designed to share ideas collaboratively and inclusively across licensing authorities throughout Gloucestershire. Uniting all parties to share best practices, leading to the introduction of innovative resource sharing programmes for large scale events, and the development and streamlining of policies and procedures to ensure continuously improved customer experience and an overall reduction in costs.
• Solely responsible for processing and determining, issuing and enforcing of up to 1500 licenses and permissions annually under the Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1976 and Licensing Act 2003.
• Spearheaded the design and implementation of new taxi vehicle identification system to incorporate the required information needed for relevant authorities, improving department efficiency by enabling faster production and roll out of 700 vehicle licence plates and 1000 driver badges issued annually.
• Provided detailed and accurate advice to the public on the scope of licenses issued by the Licensing authority and comprehensive information in relation to application procedure and policy restrictions relating to a variety of applications.
• Accompanied Gloucestershire Constabulary and other authorities during large scale events such as Cheltenham Festival, Markets and Christmas events, providing Licensing experience and advice when required.
• Introduced and coordinated monthly newsletters to the licensed trade and taxi drivers providing updates on policy and legislation changes, developing the product to be available via various social mediums such as Twitter, Facebook and the Cheltenham Borough Council website.
• Designed and developed a written examination and competence based assessment system for all new hackney carriage and private hire applications, raising the standards of new licence holders and reducing the levels of complaints received by the Licensing authority.
• Wholly responsible for pre-screening, interviewing and registering new candidates, acquiring references and entering data onto the system for a number of major “Blue Chip” Clients.
• Designed and implemented an innovative data cross referencing system incorporating both client and candidate files that ensured that client briefs were fulfilled and candidates were placed successfully.
• Placed temporary staff on a daily basis, liaising with clients to meet their specific recruitment needs.
• Undertook a senior managerial role during Cheltenham Festival, charged with the responsibility of ensuring that over 100 temporary staff employed for the duration of the event were present and fulfilling the client expectations throughout the period.
English Language BA (Hons)