Devolution and Local Government Reorganisation Policy Officer - Basildon Borough Council
Basildon Borough Council
Fixed Term (2 years), Full Time
£38,644 to £42,217 per annum inclusive of fringe
Location: Basildon
Closing Date: 30th March 2025
Essex County Council (ECC) are delighted to be supporting Basildon Borough Council (BBC) to recruit a Devolution and Local Government Reorganisation Policy Officer.
Job Purpose
Working within the organisation and the wider Essex region on devolution and local government reorganisation (LGR). To support to all services moving through LGR into developing service-specific opportunities and new ways of working. Providing direction and research into the national, regional and local picture of LGR including emerging government policy to inform analysis and interpretation of LGR and its impact on Basildon and the future new authority. This will include being a key player within the Council LGR programme and researching best practice and understanding its applicability to the future unitary authority.
Providing support for high quality, best practice, co-ordinated consultation and engagement activities. Ensuring that findings are fed back in a timely, accurate, easy to understand manner. Supporting the collation and visualisation of consultation, external and other datasets relating to the borough and its constituent parts.
Duties
- Providing direction and support to the development of the Council’s movement into LGR and unitary status of the new authority
- Working with services to develop service-specific policies to ensure transfer into the new governance structure
- Assessing and monitoring other LGR progress both within Essex and wider and providing information to ensure the organisation is kept abreast of new policy and emerging best practice from within this emerging sector
- Formulation of practical, implementable ideas for how emerging best practice can be taken forward within the Basildon and new authority context
- Provide assurance to enable the organisation to be kept abreast of new central government policy and emerging best practice from within the sector providing effective concise briefings on the potential impact on Basildon
- Undertake research and development of innovative initiatives to support effective service provision for the new authority and the shadow period prior to devolution
- Work to ensure a directory of key internal stakeholders is kept up to date and ensure effective communications.
- Work with key strategic partnerships to ensure continuity as the Council moves through LGR.
- Gathering quantitative and qualitative intelligence, which will assist the council with reputation tracking, perceptions and satisfaction levels of customers across its key priorities and services.
- Contribute to the smooth working of relationships with local community and Partners, including voluntary sector organisations.
The Experience You Will Bring
- Experience of developing policy in a large, complex organisation
- Good knowledge of local government operating environment, including key primary legislation
- Experience of research and analysis to inform policy development
- Experience of working in a political environment
- Working knowledge and experience of designing and delivering public consultation activity
- Up to date knowledge of best practice in public consultation and customer engagement
- Excellent written and communication skills
- Excellent skills with Microsoft Software Products
- Builds wide and effective networks of contacts inside and outside the organisation
- Gains clear agreement and commitment from others by persuading, convincing and negotiating
- Makes effective use of political processes to influence and persuade others
- Expresses opinions, information and key points of an argument clearly
- Makes presentation and undertakes public speaking with skill and confidence
- Writes clearly, succinctly and correctly
- Structures information to meet the needs and understanding of the intended audience
- Analyses numerical data, verbal data and all other sources of information
- Rapidly learns new tasks and quickly commits information to memory
- Gathers comprehensive information to support decision making
- Demonstrates a rapid understanding of newly presented information
- Encourages an organisational learning approach (i.e. learns from successes and failures and seeks staff and customer feedback)
- Manages knowledge (collects, classifies and disseminates knowledge of use to the organisation)
If you would like to see a copy of the full role profile, please email thea.towers@essex.gov.uk
Basildon Borough Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and adults, and expects all employees, contractors and volunteers to share its commitment to prevent abuse, harm or exploitation.
The Council applies a robust recruitment vetting process. If you are successful you will need to undergo a Pre-employment Vetting Procedure.