Location

City of Westminster, London, SW1P 4DF

Overview of the area of work

The Digital Directorate is seeking an experienced policy official with experience working on digital, data and technology policy to join a passionate new team in central government. You’ll work with the Digital Land team, corporate office and Local Digital Collaboration Unit. The digital directorate aims to house more people by making geospatial, planning and other data need for building available to property developers, property technology companies, individuals and other companies, to increase the housing supply. At the Local Digital Collaboration Unit, our goal is to help UK local authorities to overcome common hurdles in their efforts to make the most of technology when delivering digital services. We’ll do this by helping cohorts of local authorities to co-design and deliver some common products that make local services better for users and cheaper to deliver. The Digital Land team is working to improve land and housing data for the emerging proptech sector. This is a key role in a quickly growing directorate. The Local Digital Policy Lead will combine deep understanding of policy-making with a strong understanding of the principles of the Local Digital Declaration. S/he will help the team collaborate with stakeholders in other government departments in developing and articulating our policy position, and in preparation for the next Spending Review.

Key responsibilities

• Guide the directorate - especially Local Digital team & Digital Land in their dealings with other government departments.

• Lead on delivering the policy documents and spending review contributions we develop with and on behalf of the local public sector.

• Work closely with the teams to understand how we plan to deliver products that support the move to open standards, and work with us to reflect this mission in policy and Spending Review bids.

• Lead on policy questions and ministerial briefings

• Blog about our work and contribute to the ‘working in the open’ communities we’re contributing to.

Key skills/criteria

It is essential that you have:

• At least 2 years experience working for local government on service transformation, or in a role that has exposed you to data driven and user-centred service design

• An understanding of the technology involved in delivering transactional digital services

• At least 4 years experience working in policy development or related roles

• Strong understanding of the UK central government policy development process

• Experience communicating the process of policy development to a wide range of audiences - internal and external - and experience using online engagement platforms to promote your work and solitic diverse feedback

• Strong track record in building relationships across organisational boundaries, and delivering collaborative projects or policies

• Excellent writing skills, with the ability to write for non-technical online audiences It is desirable that you have:

• A good understanding of local digital sector stakeholders

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Communicating and Influencing

• Seeing the Big Picture

• Making Effective Decisions

• Working Together

Experience

You will be asked in your application for to briefly describe your experience as a policy lead working with a multidisciplinary digital team.

Technical

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Skills and experience listed above

At sift we will be assessing:

• Communicating and Influencing (lead behaviour)

• Seeing the Big Picture

• Making Effective Decisions

• Working Together

• Experience - Briefly describe your experience as a policy lead working with a multidisciplinary digital team.

There is a 250 word limit per question.

In the event that we receive a large number of applications, we may conduct an initial sift based on the lead behaviour.

Contact point for applicants

Name: Lindsey Dodd

Email: Lindsey.Dodd@communities.gov.uk