ONS Local Engagement Lead

Job summary

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK's largest producer of official statistics, providing trusted data and analysis that helps inform decisions affecting people, communities and businesses across the country.

We are recruiting for two Grade 7 leadership roles within the ONS Local Engagement Service, part of the ONS Local Statistics and Analysis (OLSA) Division.

The ONS Local service supports users to access, analyse and understand government statistics and data to inform decisions at a local level. These roles offer a unique opportunity to influence how evidence and insight are used to support place-based decision making across the UK.

The ONS Local Statistics and Analysis (OLSA) division is a centre of excellence for local statistics, analysis and dissemination. The ONS Local service works closely with local, regional and national partners to understand evidence needs, identify data gaps, and ensure decision-makers have access to high-quality statistics, analysis and insight.

We are recruiting for the following roles:

Head of ONS Local Engagement: South England covering: South East (E12000008) & South West (E12000009)

Head of ONS Local Engagement: Devolved Nations covering: · Wales (W92000004), Northern Ireland (N92000002),Scotland (S92000003)

The successful candidate will become the senior ONS Local lead for their assigned geography, representing ONS externally, building strategic partnerships, and ensuring stakeholder needs are effectively understood, prioritised and delivered.

Job description

Greater devolution and the increasing demand for locally relevant evidence mean decision-makers across the UK need more local data and insight than ever before to support policy development and evidence-based decision making.

As a ONS Local Engagement Lead, you will provide strategic leadership across your assigned geography, leading ONS Local's engagement activity and ensuring users can access the data, analysis and expertise they need. You will be responsible for delivering and evolving the ONS Local offer within your area, developing services in response to stakeholder requirements, emerging priorities and identified evidence gaps.

Reporting to the Head of ONS Local Engagement Service, you will work closely with ONS Local leads across England and the Devolved Nations, helping to strengthen ONS's capability to meet the evolving needs of users across the UK. You will collaborate with analytical and development teams to ensure stakeholder priorities are translated into impactful statistical outputs, analysis and services.

This role requires exceptional stakeholder management and relationship-building skills, a strategic mindset and an understanding of analytical approaches. We are looking for someone who can develop and sustain influential networks, understand complex user requirements and work collaboratively with colleagues and partners to ensure data and evidence are effectively used to support decision-making.

You will have line management responsibility for a Senior Engagement Officer, and there may be further opportunity to matrix manage projects and colleagues across ONS Local and the wider ONS. As a member of the ONS Local leadership team, you will contribute to strategic priorities, foster a culture of continuous improvement and collaboration, and support the wider Social, Local and Census Statistics Directorate in delivering its objectives.

Stakeholders are likely to include local government leaders and analysts, mayoral strategic authorities, Welsh Government, Scottish Government, NISRA, MHCLG, other government departments, academics, local industry representatives and colleagues across ONS, particularly those working on subnational and regional statistics.

As a place-based leadership role, regular engagement with stakeholders across your assigned geography is essential. You will be expected to build strong local relationships through a combination of virtual and face-to-face engagement and travel regularly within your portfolio area to meet stakeholders and support local delivery activities.

For the South role, applicants should be ordinarily resident within the South East or South West and be willing to travel across both regions as required. For the Devolved Nations role, applicants should be ordinarily resident in Wales, Scotland

or Northern Ireland and be willing to travel across the devolved nations to support stakeholder engagement and partnership working. Travel undertaken for business purposes within your assigned geography will be reimbursed in accordance with ONS travel and expenses policies.

Where applicants choose to live outside their assigned area(s), additional travel costs from their home address will not normally be reimbursed.

Some of our offices are based within the areas listed for these roles, regular access to workstations within these offices (in addition to the expectation to travel to stakeholder-based locations) can be arranged. Offices within these areas include Titchfield (Fareham), Newport (Wales), Edinburgh and Belfast.

Occasional travel to other UK Statistics Authority sites and external venues may also be required.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• A proven track record of building and maintaining relationships with a diverse range of stakeholders, securing buy-in, shaping priorities, and both providing and embracing constructive challenge.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts, statistical evidence and complex analysis clearly to technical peers and non-technical audiences.
• The ability to solve issues and unblock problems, when working across boundaries to identify and leverage the most effective data and insights, to ensure the delivery of high quality, user-focused outputs that enable robust evidence-based decision making.
• Ability to demonstrate inclusive and effective leadership, creating a culture of personal development, and engaging a team to deliver improved outcomes and seek new ways of working.
• The postholder needs to be able to travel regularly within their assigned area, as well as other ONS office locations.

Behaviours

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

• Working Together
• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £56,861, Office for National Statistics contributes £16,472 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our valued colleagues across the organisation.

Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that our careers site will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.

Inclusion & Accessibility

At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.

As part of our application process, you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process that you need. If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.

If you would like an accessible version of any of the attachments or recruitment documents below or linked to in this advert, please contact the recruitment team who will be happy to assist.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

For ONS the requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for 3 consecutive years immediately prior to applying and the department will consider eligibility by exception on a case-by-case basis. You will be asked to provide information regarding your UK residency during your application, and failure to provide this will result in your application being rejected.

At the point of SC application, you will need to provide or give access to the following evidence:

• Departmental or company records (personnel files, staff reports, sick leave reports and security records)
• UK criminal records covering both spent and unspent criminal records
• Your credit and financial history with a credit reference agency
• Security Services records

Right to Work and Nationality Requirements

To work at ONS, applicants must meet the Civil Service nationality requirements, satisfy UK right to work requirements and, where applicable, meet the relevant security clearance requirements.

If you are unsure whether you meet the appropriate right to work or security clearance eligibility criteria, please refer to the guidance on Gov.uk or contact the recruitment email provided in the advert before applying. Failure to meet these requirements will result in your application being rejected and employment offers being withdrawn.

Application Process

Number of Stages: 2 stage process

• Stage 1: Application
• Stage 2: Interview

Stage 1 – Application

The assessment process at the application stage will be based on your CV and personal statement. It is important that your application is tailored to highlight the skills, knowledge, and experience relevant to the role.

A personal statement is required at application stage, the maximum wordcount allowed is 1250, which should not be exceeded. You should provide evidence for each essential skill criterion listed in the person specification. As these criteria are scored, it is advisable to give clear examples for each one, including the impact of your actions, ideally utilising the STAR technique (Situation, Task, Action, Result).

Please note that Success Profiles Behaviour examples are not required at this stage of the application process.

When a high volume of applications are received, the sift pass mark may be adjusted. Candidates will be invited to interview based on their merit order, with those achieving the highest scores being prioritised. Applicants who score below the adjusted pass mark but still pass will be placed on hold and may be invited to interview at a later date.

Stage 2 – Interview

If invited to interview, you will be assessed using techniques aligned with the Civil Service Success Profiles framework, covering all behaviours listed in the job advert and any required technical skills.

You will be required to provide a 5 minute presentation at interview. The presentation topic will be emailed to candidates who have passed the initial online application stage, 1 week prior to interview. This presentation will assess candidates against the Communicating and influencing Behaviour.

Interviews may be in person or via Microsoft Teams.

Our main locations are Newport (South Wales), Titchfield and Darlington, Manchester, London, Belfast

Candidates should note this is a multi-location campaign and therefore appointments and reserve lists will be made by location in merit order. A reserve list may be held for a period up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made.

Important Dates:

• The Sift will be conducted from 14th September
• Interviews will be conducted from 29th September

Dates are subject to change.

For the full terms and conditions of the post, please see attachment.

Please note that all campaigns may be subject to withdrawal at any stage if the internal resource position changes.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a standard (or equivalent) criminal record check.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Analytical recruitment
• Email : ons.analytical.resourcing@ons.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : ons.analytical.resourcing@ons.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, in the first instance, you should contact recruitment.complaints@ons.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission

Attachments

Role1_Standard_Requirements Opens in new window (pdf, 76kB)2721 Advert 1A Permanent - ONS London Inclusive v1-00 Opens in new window (pdf, 83kB)