Do you want to work on some of the biggest economic challenges of our time? Are you looking for an exciting role working in one of Whitehall’s biggest and busiest departments? Are you a highly motivated self-starter with a background in public affairs or communications?

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced communicator to join the External Affairs team at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) as a Ministerial Engagement Officer.

You will be part of a busy team responsible for the planning, co-ordination and delivery of high profile visits and events for the BEIS ministerial team. Our work is fast-moving and varied, requiring close working with Ministers, stakeholders, policy and communications colleagues to shape and identify opportunities that successfully promote the Department's priorities to a range of audiences, including the media. Within the team you will also support the delivery of stakeholder communications, aiming to generate awareness, support and advocacy for key government policies.

You will be joining a team that is responsible for communicating the biggest economic issues we face as a country including our ongoing response to COVID-19, the UK's future trading relationships with the rest of the world, and the drive to a cleaner, greener future.

In the BEIS communications team our values and behaviours are critical to delivering on our mission and purpose. We recognise that different people bring different strengths, skills and approaches, which together form a team which is greater than the sum of its parts. We believe success comes through taking pride in pioneering, professional excellence, bringing people together and breaking down boundaries.

Job description

As a member of the External Affairs team, your responsibilities will include:

• Capturing insight from across the policy and stakeholder landscape to inform and influence ministerial engagement recommendations, seeking to generate support and advocacy for the Department’s policies.

• Crafting Ministers’ visits and engagement plans, ensuring buy-in from Special Advisers, Private Office, policy and communications colleagues.

• Developing communications plans, often in partnership with high-profile stakeholders, to ensure visits successfully promote the Department's priorities through a range of channels, including media and digital.

• Drafting regular communications materials to provide to the Department's key stakeholders to encourage public support and advocacy.

• Maintaining up to date, relevant stakeholder contact lists to ensure we are listening to and engaging the right people.

• Drafting ministerial submissions and briefings to support stakeholder engagement and visit plans. Including writing visit schedules, coordinating briefings for Ministers and organising recces, often at short notice.

• Leading ministerial visits, amplifying engagement for a variety of channels, including the media and digital.

• Maintaining and updating records of external reaction to government policies or announcements.

• Always being alert to communications opportunities and risks by working with communications colleagues to maximise and mitigate respectively, making recommendations, and finding solutions.

• Evaluating the success of stakeholder and ministerial engagement and identifying creative ways to showcase the team's work.

• Championing the work of the External Affairs team, sharing and embedding best practice across Whitehall and the Department to improve the quality of stakeholder engagement.
 

Responsibilities

You will have experience working across multiple communications disciplines, including a good sense of what makes an eye-catching visit with engaging visuals that work on digital and broadcast media.

You will need excellent political judgement to spot communications opportunities and risks, as well as a sharp news sense, being alert to the wider government agenda and vision.

You must have the ability to quickly build strong relationships, and the confidence to engage directly with senior colleagues, stakeholders and Ministers.

You will have excellent verbal and written skills as you will be responsible for producing submissions for Ministers, as well as briefing them on stakeholder engagement opportunities and visits in person.

You will work with policy teams, Private Offices, Special Advisers and communications colleagues across the Department to build strategic visit and engagement plans that aim to generate support and advocacy for our policies. You must therefore be able to work at pace and often to very tight deadlines and be great at prioritising work.

You will have the ability to grasp complex issues quickly and think on your feet when dealing with difficult logistics, changes in plan, or challenging stakeholders.

This position involves travel across the UK for recces and accompanying Ministers on visits.

Technical Skills

You will be assessed on the following technical skills during interview.

Insight

Promote and encourage the early integration of strategic communication and policy development to advise ministers.

Ideas

Lead the development and implementation of innovative communication strategies that meet objectives.

Implementation

Develop strong relationships with ministers, policy colleagues and key stakeholders. Build influential networks to enable communication teams to deliver quality solutions.

Impact

Evaluate the effectiveness of communication against objectives. Review lessons learnt and compare with industry best practice to identify areas for improvement for future communication strategies.

Behaviours

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

• Communicating and Influencing
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Delivering at Pace

Technical skills

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

• Insight
• Ideas
• Implementation
• Impact

Benefits

BEIS offers a competitive mix of benefits including:

• A culture of flexible working, such as job sharing, homeworking and compressed hours.
• Automatic enrolment into the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
• A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 30.
• An extensive range of learning & professional development opportunities, which all staff are actively encouraged to pursue.
• Access to a range of retail, travel and lifestyle employee discounts.