The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) is looking for an exceptional candidate to join as a senior advisor in our Local Government team in London. The successful applicant will work on a wide range of behavioural insights projects with a focus on social care. However, the work will include other parts of local government portfolio and previous projects have been in health, crime and early years.

The Behavioural Insights Team

The Prime Minister created BIT in 2010 to apply behavioural science to public policy in the UK. In February 2014 we became a social purpose company, owned by the Cabinet Office, Nesta (an innovation charity) and our employees.

The Behavioural Insights Team works with governments around the world in almost every area of Government policy. Whilst the subject and output of our projects varies considerably, there are common threads: we try to understand the contexts in which their people make decisions; we notice small details; we find out what has and hasn’t worked before; and we measure everything we do as robustly as we can.

As well as displaying professional excellence, BIT selects staff on the basis of cultural fit: all our staff believe passionately in our company values: always prioritising social impact; empiricism and humility; fresh thinking, collaboration; and public service.

Roles and Responsibilities

We are looking for a candidate with strong behavioural insights expertise who can identify, develop and deliver innovative projects in the public sector. Good understanding of research and evaluation is essential; especially the pragmatism to design evaluations where sample sizes are low and processes are uncertain. Understanding of local government, and social care in particular, would be a plus.

As a Senior Advisor, you will interact with senior clients such as Directors of Social Care on a regular basis. A skill for this role is ability to demonstrate the value of a behavioural approach within local government. This will be part of developing the local government portfolio as well as creating value for clients in project delivery. You will also play a role in ensuring that quality is maintained across the business, including by quality assuring outputs from other policy teams.

Senior Advisors work closely with Principal Advisors and the Directors across BIT. They also often also line manage one or more Advisors or Associate Advisors, and are responsible for coaching and mentoring these staff, and developing their skills and expertise.

Essential

• Experience developing or delivering policy in government, academia, or for a consulting firm. Ideally this experience should be related to local government.

• A deep understanding of the behavioural science literature and how it can be applied to help solve complex policy problems.

• Excellent written and verbal communication (for example ability to write short, to-the-point policy papers for Chief Executives or senior officials).

• Excellent program and project management skills, including an eye for detail and commitment to quality in all aspects of a project;

• Strong leadership and teamwork skills, including supporting team members to develop their own skills and expertise.

• Excellent client and stakeholder relationship management.

• An interest in social care for children and adults

Desirable

• Ability to support the design and implementation of rigorous evaluations, including but not limited to randomised controlled trials.

• Masters in a relevant subject area (including, but not limited to behavioural economics, psychology, design thinking, evaluation methods).

• Good knowledge of local government issues.