Policy Officer

Job summary

Looking for a role where you can influence how data is used across the UK? Join us at the heart of Legal and Data Services and make a real impact.

This role sits at the heart of the UK Statistics Authority, supporting the delivery of Legal and Data Services (LDS) across the organisation, including the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). The LDS team provides expert advice and hands-on support across a diverse portfolio, including data governance, policy, Freedom of Information (FOI), Data Protection, ethics, accreditation for statistical research, and complaints handling. Through this work, the team plays a vital role in ensuring the organisation operates within legal frameworks, maintains public trust, and upholds the highest standards of transparency and accountability.

The UK Statistics Authority is an independent body operating at arm’s length from government, with a clear statutory mission to promote and safeguard the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good. As its executive office, ONS is the UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics, delivering critical insights across economic, social, and demographic areas. This includes the census, tracking changes in the UK economy, estimating population size and characteristics, and producing key indicators such as inflation, employment, earnings, crime, and migration, providing the evidence that underpins decision-making across government and society.

Job description

This role offers a unique opportunity to work at the centre of one of the most dynamic areas of the UK Statistics Authority. Based within the Legal and Data Services (LDS) branch in the Strategy & Policy division, you will play a key role in supporting the National Statistician, Permanent Secretary, senior leaders and colleagues across the organisation. The LDS team is responsible for overseeing how data is accessed, used and shared for research and statistical purposes, ensuring all activity is compliant with relevant legislation. Through this work, LDS is instrumental in helping the Authority deliver its strategic objectives, producing trustworthy, independent and high‑quality statistics that inform the UK’s most important economic and societal decisions, always in a way that is legal, ethical, transparent and for the public good.

As a Policy Adviser, you will be part of a multidisciplinary team at the forefront of legal and data governance. You will provide both expert advice and practical support across a wide range of areas, including Freedom of Information (FOI), UK GDPR, data ethics and Digital Economy Act accreditation. The role will see you working collaboratively with teams across the organisation, such as Knowledge and Information Management, Security and Private Office, as well as engaging with external stakeholders including the Government Legal Department, the Statistical Data Ethics Advisory Committee and the Research Accreditation Panel.

You will contribute to shaping and implementing policies and procedures, ensuring statutory compliance, and safeguarding the Authority’s reputation for ethical and lawful data use.

This is a fast‑paced and varied role, offering the opportunity to work flexibly across the LDS team, responding to evolving priorities and emerging challenges as business needs change.

Responsibilities

The Legal and Data Services team manage a variety of legal and policy functions. Responsibilities for this role may include:

• Supporting the delivery of responsive and timely secretariat and policy advice services to the chair and members of the UK Statistics Authority Research Accreditation Panel (RAP) in respect of the RAP’s role in supervising the accreditation of research projects, researchers and Trusted Research Environments under the Digital Economy Act 2017.

• Implementing and managing systems to ensure that the research project accreditation process overseen by the RAP is delivered efficiently and effectively, being a key enabler for data access in multiple TREs across the UK.

• Providing advice and guidance on legal and ethical matters, including data sharing, acquisition, and interpretation of legislation and engaging with internal and external stakeholders to promote legal and ethical standards across the organisation.

• Support the Data Protection Officer in fulfilling statutory obligations under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, including compliance activities such as personal data breach management, audits and risk management through review of data protection impact assessments.

• Assisting the Legal and Data Services senior leadership team in drafting papers, and providing advice, support and briefing within the branch’s remit and to the relevant boards, panels and committees.

Person specification

Essential Skills Criteria:

Candidates will need to demonstrate:

• Experience working with a range of customers and stakeholders, with the ability to build and maintain strong business relationships, and use influence to achieve outcomes.

• Strong interpersonal communication and writing skills.

• Can analyse information from multiple sources, quickly draw conclusions from information to simplify and communicate issues to non-experts in a clear way.

• Can operate flexibly and at pace, with experience of planning and prioritising your workload to meet tight deadlines.

• Keen eye for detail to ensure a quality service is delivered quickly and effectively and can liaise with stakeholders and take on their feedback to review and improve services.

Behaviours

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

• Communicating and Influencing
• Delivering at Pace
• Managing a Quality Service
• Seeing the Big Picture

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £35,144, UK Statistics Authority contributes £10,181 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 UK Statistics Authority 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.

Security Clearance

For UKSA 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

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 work history, CV, skills, experience, 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 1000, 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.

Interviews will be carried out Via Ms Teams.

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 07/07/2026

Interviews will be conducted from 22/07/2026

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 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 : Jason Riches
• Email : Jason.Riches@statistics.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : Recruitmentoperations@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

ONS_Vacancy_Terms(Permanent) Opens in new window (pdf, 83kB)