Senior Associate – Compliance, PSED

Equality and Human Rights Commission

Location Manchester, Cardiff or Glasgow. With occasional travel to other locations to meet business needs.
Salary £38,990.64 (pending a pay award for 2022/23)
Team Compliance Team
  • Closing: 11:59pm, 4th Sep 2022 BST

Job Description

About us

We are Britain’s national equality regulator and a United Nations accredited ‘A status’ national human rights institution.

We uphold people’s rights without fear or favour. We use the full force of our legal powers to defend people from unfair or unequal treatment and to challenge breaches of the law. We advise on developing laws and provide guidance, training and support to enable compliance.

We bring people together to create change. We work with employers, governments and a wide range of organisations, to promote understanding of equality and human rights and we support them to make improvements in practice.

Our new strategy for 2022-25 gives us a strong platform to show that we will use our powers to protect and promote equality and human rights, and that we have identified the main challenges in society where we can make a difference in our role as a regulator.

Overview of the role and responsibilities

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has an ambitious new strategy, focusing our resources on where we can make a real, lasting difference to people’s lives across Britain.  We will use our powers to tackle unlawful discrimination, improve equality outcomes and protect and promote human rights. As a regulator, we have a strong set of powers and levers, and our aim is to use all of these to the greatest possible effect, across the most challenging issues facing Britain today. These range from upholding rights and equality in health and social care, against the context of the inequalities exposed and exacerbated by the pandemic, to addressing the growing equality and human rights impact of digital services and artificial intelligence so that people are not left behind as services move online, or unlawfully discriminated against by automated decision making.

To ensure we fulfil the ambitions in our new strategy, we continue to develop and strengthen our regulatory model and we’re investing in building our regulatory capability. We want to constantly learn about and improve how we regulate most effectively, and we are committed to the continuing growth and development of our teams. Working with us should enable colleagues to develop and deepen their knowledge of and expertise in equality and human rights law, as well their skills and confidence as regulators.

This Senior Associate role sits within the Interventions team of the Compliance directorate. As a team, we focus on three key areas for supporting compliance with the Equality and Human Rights Act:

i) Providing guidance, advice, training & education to duty bearers, employers, regulators, inspectors and ombudsmen

ii) Working alongside other regulators, inspectors and ombudsmen to influence change through and alongside them

iii)Supporting organisations to understand their Public Sector Equality Duty obligations, sharing and embedding good practice.

The post holder will be responsible for drawing on behavioural insight thinking to shape how we deliver work across these areas and determine the most effective intervention for achieving real change. This involves building and managing stakeholder relationships to determine the capability and motivation of duty bearers. It can also include, but is not limited to, gathering insight from polling, surveys, our intelligence sources and learning from previous interventions to design and deliver impactful interventions. 

The role also requires understanding of equality and/or human rights legislation, the barriers to compliance with those laws in Great Britain experience of working with stakeholders on projects with impact. In particular, some knowledge of the public sector equality duty (PSED) would be beneficial.

The Senior Associate (Level 4) will report to a Compliance Interventions Principal and will work independently when required. This will depend on the task and will be within agreed delegated limits and supervisory frameworks.  It is likely to include work to monitor how public bodies in England are complying with their obligations under the public sector equality duty, and using the intelligence from this monitoring to design and deliver interventions to support better compliance. 

To be fully effective in this role you will be required to demonstrate our core skills of leadership, delivery management and stakeholder engagement as well as certain knowledge, skills and experience.

In return, we can offer you a great place and a dedicated team working with you on subjects that really matter to people. We will support you in developing professional skills and expertise, encourage you to think creatively and independently, develop new skills, and progress your career.

You will:

  • Design and deliver targeted interventions under our relevant priority aims to ensure organisations have the knowledge and tools they need to comply with equality and human rights law.

  • Analyse information and evidence to identify barriers to, and ways to improve, compliance with equality and human rights law.

  • Understand and apply behavioural insight thinking when designing and delivering compliance activity committed to within our Business Plan.

  • Develop, deliver and report against a compliance work plan in relation to a significant priority area within our strategic plan. This includes contributing to relevant strategic planning boards and providing a clear rationale for our approach to requests for Compliance activity.

  • Identify, engage and maintain effective relationships with internal and external stakeholders in order to meet our strategic aims

  • Communicate legal concepts and advice into accessible, user-friendly language and/ or documents to promote compliance by external stakeholders. This may include at events, roundtables and meetings or via written communications such as guidance, training materials, toolkits and blogs.

  • Use your strong communication skills to develop materials to a high standard for a variety of audiences.

  • Plan and organise your own work and supporting the performance and development of our team.

  • Contribute to the delivery of key internal projects such as the Website project and Impact work.Team Responsibilities

The Compliance directorate is responsible for identifying the barriers to/examples of good practice in compliance with the Equality Act and Human Rights Act and, using that information to inform interventions which equip organisations with the knowledge and tools to comply with the law.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

The Compliance directorate is responsible for identifying the barriers to/examples of good practice in compliance with the Equality Act and Human Rights Act and, using that information to inform interventions which equip organisations with the knowledge and tools to comply with the law.

Essential knowledge and skills:

  • Strong communication skills, with the ability to effectively engage with stakeholders and manage a diverse range of interests and relationships, both internal and external

  • Ability to analytically examine information and draw on behavioural insight thinking to identify critical points, develop conclusions and test solutions

  • Ability to organise and prioritise your own work in an environment of limited resources and competing demands

  • An understanding of equality and/or human rights legislation and policy

Desirable knowledge and skills

  •  A strong understanding of the barriers to compliance with equality and human rights legislation

 Essential experience

  • Experience of producing high quality written materials in different formats, for a range of audiences and purposes i.e. briefings; guidance; toolkits; letters; consultation responses; PowerPoint presentations etc.

  • Experience of managing stakeholder interests and expectations, whilst working within resource and budget constraints

  • Experience of delivering projects with demonstrable impact

  • Experience of developing effective strategies for an organisation, team or project

 Desirable experience

  •  Experience of drawing on intelligence and evidence to shape approaches and activity

Benefits

In addition to a competitive salary, we offer a range of benefits including flexible working patterns, 30 days annual leave plus 8 bank holidays (full time FTE), access to the Civil Service Pension Scheme and partnership pension schemes, and enhanced parental leave benefits. More information can be found in the candidate pack.

How to apply

If this sounds like the role for you, please review the attached Candidate Pack or more information and submit your application today!

If you have any questions, please contact Max Edelstyn: Principal, Interventions - Max.Edelstyn@equalityhumanrights.com or 029 2044 7716.

Guaranteed Interview Scheme

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is an accredited Disability Confident Leader and operates a Guaranteed Interview Scheme (GIS) for candidates with a disability.

Should you wish to apply under our Guaranteed Interview Scheme or request a reasonable adjustment, please indicate this in your application.  

If you require an alternative accessible version of the application form or wish to discuss your application or reasonable adjustment  – please contact us by email at recruitment@equalityhumanrights.com or by telephone on 0161 829 8100.

Diversity in our workforce

At the Commission, we are proud of our respectful workplace that values the contribution of all our staff, whatever their background.  We do not tolerate discrimination or harassment. Our recruitment decisions are based on fair, open competition, with appointment on merit. We welcome applications from everyone to ensure we achieve a balanced representation in our workforce in all grades.

Removing bias from the hiring process

Applications closed Sun 4th Sep 2022

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Removing bias from the hiring process

  • Your application will be anonymously reviewed by our hiring team to ensure fairness
  • You won't need a CV to apply to this job

Applications closed Sun 4th Sep 2022