Head of Policy and Communications

Local Government Ombudsman; Coventry, York; Hybrid; GBP 62,000 - 69,000; Full time

Job description

Hybrid working – allocated to offices in Coventry or York

Location

Based in Coventry and York.

Role

If you want to use your engagement, policy and communication skills to make a difference to the lives of tens of thousands of people, our Head of Policy and Communications role is for you.

You will lead a small team that has a big impact. Your work will use our complaint casework findings to drive change in public policy and local government services across England. Helping local authorities and adult care providers to learn from complaints, you will work in an organisation that leads the way in transparency and innovation through a culture of trust, empowerment and confidence.

Reporting to the Chief Executive Officer and part of the Executive Team, you will be responsible for developing and implementing communications and engagement strategies that increase the impact of our casework and share the learning from it with all local authorities in England, all care providers, and with Government. You will also lead the development of our external policy positions, working closely with colleagues across the organisation to base our approach on evidence and our unique insight.

While you may have local government, ombudsman, or public sector experience, it is your proven ability to increase the impact of an organisation’s work that is key. You will be responsible for all our external policy and internal and external communications. This includes staff engagement, media relations, stakeholder management, social media, publications, policy development, parliamentary engagement, scrutiny, intervention, and external training. You will also oversee our committee governance and information governance work.

As well as being highly motivated and outcome-oriented, you will be a team player with excellent planning and influencing skills, able to lead, empower, and inspire your team and others to achieve results.

With senior-level communications and/or policy experience in an organisation with a high public profile, you will have a track record of advising at the most senior level and extensive experience of working with the media and stakeholders in a high-profile, national organisation.

Details

Position: Head of Policy and Communications

Hours: 35

Salary: £62,579 to £68,402 per annum

Holiday: 27 days rising by 1 day with three years’ service and a further 2 days with five years’ service.

Requirements

Education

No specific qualification is required; however, an understanding and application of the knowledge, skill, and experience (listed below) is required. This is typically gained through a degree-level professional/academic qualification or extensive practical experience.

Skills

• Able to analyse large volumes of complex information to make clear evidence-based decisions
• Able to communicate complex information in plain English
• Ability to actively manage competing priorities to meet targets and deadlines
• Resilience in dealing with challenges to your work

Experience

Experience of working in a role which involves dealing with a range of service users and/or customers.

At the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, we value our staff and work hard to reward them. We are an ambitious, focused, inclusive, and friendly organisation which is recognised for the important work we do. There is a range of benefits for all our staff to enjoy. These include:

• Pension: You’ll be entitled to join the Local Government Pension Scheme which is a career average scheme.
• Work/life balance: We encourage all employees to have a healthy work/life balance and offer flexible working arrangements, such as agile working and flexi-time, together with a wide range of different working patterns, all subject to business needs.
• Learning and development: We provide our staff with access to a learning and development programme to enable them to succeed in their role. Where membership is relevant to your role in the organisation, we will also pay the annual membership fee for you to be a member of your professional body.
• Family-friendly: We offer generous maternity, adoption, paternity, and parental leave, and provide for paid and unpaid special leave.
• Season ticket loan: We offer our staff the ability to have a loan for their annual travel season ticket.
• Wellbeing: We have a programme which includes an Occupational Health Service and access for you to an excellent, confidential Employee Assistance Scheme. This is a free 24-hour counselling service for advice about your work and personal life challenges.
• You will be able to join the Civil Service Sports Club.
• As well as reimbursing the cost of your eye tests, we will subsidise your eye care where a prescription is for VDU usage, and we will cover the cost of an annual flu jab.
• Bike loan: We run a Cycle to Work Scheme which allows you to pay for the cost of your bike (up to a limit) as a loan which is deducted from your salary.
• Reasonable adjustments: We recognise how important it is to make reasonable changes for staff where appropriate.

About the LGSCO

For 50 years we’ve been the voice of the public. Our free and impartial service helps people put things right with their local council or adult social care provider. We use what we learn from complaints to improve local public services and independent adult social care provision. We act with impartiality and make fair decisions after listening to both sides of the story and weighing up all the evidence. So, if you want to make a difference and have the perspective we’re looking for, please get in touch.