Senior Strategy and Policy Advisor

Bristol, Darlington, London, Manchester, Wolverhampton

Job Summary We are MHCLG

The Local Government, Growth and Communities Strategy is responsible for setting the strategic direction of the Group, working across high profile policies programmes and reforms.

This is an exciting time to join the Strategy team and lead on cross-cutting work which reflects the priorities of the Group, and carefully considers the impact of this work on the local government sector. We work collaboratively across a wide range of internal and external stakeholders to ensure we set the right priorities that reflect the needs of local government, influencing, operationalising and championing those priorities across Government in a coherent and coordinated way.

We act as a strategic hub for the Group to join up, offer constructive challenge, identify emerging pressing issues, and carefully consider interdependencies. In this role, you will have an exciting opportunity to lead on new emerging policy development, by ‘incubating’ policy work that is novel, contentious or genuinely cross-cutting.

Alongside short term high-priority projects, this work includes understanding and preparing for the big strategic challenges facing the local government sector in the medium and longer term. You will also lead the group’s approach to fiscal events. This includes leading on major fiscal milestones on behalf of the Group, such as business planning, Spending Review and the Budget. This work requires working closely with policy teams, seniors and finance business partners to ensure the group’s priorities are protected in negotiations on final funding agreements across a multi-billion-pound portfolio.

In the Strategy team you will have the opportunity to work on a wide range of interesting issues across the whole span of the Group’s portfolio, giving you the opportunity to have visibility with seniors and policy teams across a range of areas. You’ll be joining a fun, energetic and supportive team that is up for new challenges and holds strong positive relationships across the Group, department and Ministerial offices.

Job Description As the Senior Strategy and Policy Advisor your responsibilities will include:

• Playing a leadership role in creating an inclusive, high performing team by ensuring team members share clear priorities and are stretched with support for their development. This will involve playing an active and visible leadership role in the division as well as in the wider group, role modelling behaviours and working flexibly across teams in an agile way.
• Shaping policy and strategy development in the context of ministerial priorities – including considering new and innovative approaches to problems and emerging priorities, supporting and constructively challenging other  policy teams, making sure policy and strategy work is joined up, and based on strong evidence and analysis.
• Working with analysts and other functions (legal, finance etc) where needed, including working with Ministers, their political advisors and seniors to briefing them on policy or programme proposals.
• Scoping out, overseeing, and delivering cross-cutting work for the Group, This can be both regular routine work, or ad hoc emerging priorities given the nature of the team’s work is always varied.
• Lead the Group’s work on major fiscal events, such as the upcoming Spending Review. This will involve working across policy teams and finance teams to ensure a coherent and strong set of proposals are prioritised.
• Proactively creating and maintaining a strong network of contacts across the Department, central Government and local government across a complex stakeholder system, working in partnership to ensure alignment of activity and policy with the Group’s overall strategy.
• Communicating and engaging with a wide range of audiences, to create clarity on objectives, build consensus and drive delivery of work.

As the Senior Strategy and Policy Advisor your responsibilities will include:

• Playing a leadership role in creating an inclusive, high performing team by ensuring team members share clear priorities and are stretched with support for their development. This will involve playing an active and visible leadership role in the division as well as in the wider group, role modelling behaviours and working flexibly across teams in an agile way.
• Shaping policy and strategy development in the context of ministerial priorities – including considering new and innovative approaches to problems and emerging priorities, supporting and constructively challenging other  policy teams, making sure policy and strategy work is joined up, and based on strong evidence and analysis.
• Working with analysts and other functions (legal, finance etc) where needed, including working with Ministers, their political advisors and seniors to briefing them on policy or programme proposals.
• Scoping out, overseeing, and delivering cross-cutting work for the Group, This can be both regular routine work, or ad hoc emerging priorities given the nature of the team’s work is always varied.
• Lead the Group’s work on major fiscal events, such as the upcoming Spending Review. This will involve working across policy teams and finance teams to ensure a coherent and strong set of proposals are prioritised.
• Proactively creating and maintaining a strong network of contacts across the Department, central Government and local government across a complex stakeholder system, working in partnership to ensure alignment of activity and policy with the Group’s overall strategy.
• Communicating and engaging with a wide range of audiences, to create clarity on objectives, build consensus and drive delivery of work.

Person specification

• Knowledge and experience of local government and/or growth and communities policy is desirable but not essential
• Finance experience or experience working with large budgets would be desirable but not essential
• Used to tackling big strategic questions and can communicate complex issues clearly to a wide range of audiences.
• Experience managing competing priorities in a fast-paced environment
• Ability to navigate complex and sometimes incomplete information to reach clear and balanced conclusions
• Great at working in partnership within and beyond national government, building consensus across diverse needs and perspectives, and finding solutions to strategic issues, maintaining the trust of the stakeholders through periods of change.
• Comfortable working at pace, are solution-focussed, flexible and resilient; happy to provide constructive challenge, enjoy getting their teeth into novel issues, and can navigate uncertainty.
• Have political nous, and have experience of working with – or supporting those working with – Ministers to deliver their objectives.
• Want to play an active role in building a high-performing, inclusive and collaborative team, where people do rewarding work, develop their skills and can progress their careers.

Alongside your salary of £58,092, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government contributes £16,829 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

At MHCLG we offer many benefits that range from tailored career pathways and flexible working to MyLifestyle Staff Benefits Scheme, Childcare Vouchers, and Cycle to Work Schemes. For more information, please click here.

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

Application and Selection The application process will be split into 2 stages, testing the following Success Profiles:

Behaviours , Experience Stage 1: Sift

• Experience (lead Sift): 250 word personal statement explaining how your skills and experience and suitable for this role.
• Behaviour: Seeing the big picture
• Behaviour: Making effective decisions
• Behaviour: Delivering at pace

There is a 250-word limit per question.

When Writing Your Application, Remember

• the assessor won’t be reading your answers sequentially
• do not assume that the same assessors will have read all of your answers
• if talking about something in your first answer, make sure that you write the second answer as if you had not written the first (and so on!)

Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that each of your answers would be viewed by different assessors.

In the event that we receive a large number of applications, we may conduct an initial sift using the lead behaviour listed in the advert. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift or progressed straight to interview.

If you run into any technical problems when applying through Be Applied (for example, trouble logging in or submitting your application), their support team can help. Please contact them at hello@beapplied.com .

Stage 2: Interview

• Behaviours: Seeing The Big Picture, Delivering at Pace, Making Effective Decisions, Communicating and Influencing

Candidates will be asked to prepare a 5-minute presentation, further details will be provided on invitation to interview. the presentation will be assesed agains