Senior Equality and Welfare Manager

Job summary

About us

We are an arm’s length body of the Welsh Government, responsible for the strategy, funding and oversight of:

• further education
• higher education including research and innovation;
• apprenticeships
• adult community learning; and local authority maintained school sixth forms.

We work in close collaboration with our partners to enable a tertiary education and research system which is centred around the needs of learners; society; and economy with excellence, equality and engagement at its heart.

Our values really matter to us, they help shape the culture of our organisation:

• Dysgu (to learn; to teach; to educate) - learning is at the heart of everything we do. We believe curiosity fuels innovation and helps expand our horizons.
• Cydweithio (to work together; to collaborate; to co-operate) - we can achieve far more together than we ever could alone.
• Cynnwys Pawb (to include everyone; to involve everyone) - we are passionate about inclusion, seeking to create the right conditions for everyone to achieve their full potential.
• Rhagori (to exceed; to excel) - we have high aspirations for tertiary education and research in Wales and always set high standards for ourselves to be the best we can be.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and accredited as a Living Wage employer.

Location

Our headquarters is in 2, Capital Quarter, Cardiff, which has been specifically designed to meet our needs. This is where most colleagues will meet to collaborate, both with each other and with stakeholders.

As we operate across Wales, we also have limited office and collaboration space in Welsh Government offices in Llandudno Junction, Aberystwyth, Swansea and Merthyr Tydfil.

Main purpose of the job

Continuing and intensifying work on equality of opportunity and welfare, is a vital tool in building a fairer, more equal, healthier Wales. As a senior manager, you will play an important role in Medr’s efforts in promoting equality of opportunity and enhancing staff and student welfare. You will contribute to creating a more equitable tertiary education system for all who can benefit from it.

The role will provide the opportunity to develop and implement tertiary education policy within the Widening Access and Inclusion Team, and work across Medr and collaborate with partners to achieve these goals.

As a senior manager, you will develop, implement, and monitor equality of opportunity- and staff and student welfare-related policies, ensuring compliance with relevant legislation.

Job description

What you'll be doing

You will:

• Provide advice on relevant policy areas, ensuring policy development is evidence-informed and aligned to legislation and government expectations set out in strategies, plans and best practice by working across Medr with Welsh Government and other UK- and Wales-specific organisations;
• Work with tertiary education providers and other partners, working across Wales, and across the UK where appropriate, building relationships that will support the realisation of Medr’s ambitions on equality of opportunity and welfare;
• Deliver on Medr’s regulatory and funding responsibilities, including through oversight and monitoring of relevant parts of the tertiary regulatory approach and funding activities that support equality of opportunity and welfare;
• Provide assurance to, and seek advice from, Medr groups and committees on equality of opportunity and welfare policy development, implementation, funding and outcomes;
• Working collaboratively across Medr to ensure that policy development draws on the diverse expertise and experience within the organisation;
• Contribute to Medr’s corporate functions as appropriate, including as they relate to Corporate, Operational and Strategic Equality Plan objectives, regulatory and funding functions, risk and assurance activity;
• Line manage initially one team member.

Key challenges

Your key challenges include:

• Operating in a complex tertiary education context, taking account of the diversity of the education system;
• Engaging and involving a wide range of education providers and external partners to address entrenched inequalities;
• Ensuring that equality of opportunity and staff and student welfare policy supports continuous improvement and ensures a more equitable system for staff, students and learners;
• Managing competing priorities in a high-profile, challenging and evolving policy context.

About your team

Part of the Learner Experience Directorate, the Widening Access and Inclusion Team promotes equality of opportunity, well-being and safety, participation in tertiary education as this relates to widening access, and contributes to the delivery of Medr's wider strategic duties. Our goal is to ensure inclusive learning and work environments for all, regardless of identity or social, cultural, economic, and organisational barriers. We support the Well-being of Future Generations Act (2015) and contribute to the civic mission of tertiary education, supporting people to fulfil their potential regardless of their background or circumstance.

Your line manager

Ryan Stokes is Head of Widening Access and Inclusion with over two decades of experience in the public sector and tertiary education. Ryan has held senior roles within policy and funding, including at the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales. Ryan’s career has been dedicated to advancing educational equity, with work focused on further education, adult community learning, and local delivery of a Welsh Government anti-poverty programme.

Person specification

What you will bring

Attributes

• Drive - You demonstrate strategic thinking and a results-oriented approach.
• Honest - You build trust through consistent and reliable behaviour.
• Reflective - You critically assess your decisions and actions, seeking to learn from both successes and failures.

Experience

• Proven ability to understand and interpret policy priorities, working collaboratively to develop strategies and implementation options with maximum impact.
• Experience of developing and/or implementing policy, ideally within the tertiary education or public.
• Knowledge of the tertiary education and research sector in Wales

Welsh language requirements

We have evaluated that the Welsh language requirements for this post are:

Desirable

Welsh desirable means that while having Welsh language skills is useful for the role, it is not an assessment criterion, so it won’t disadvantage you during recruitment if you don’t currently possess these skills.

• Reading
• Spoken
• Understanding
• Written

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £49,301, Medr contributes £14,282 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Your perks and benefits

We recognise the importance of looking after ourselves in work and in life, so in recognition of this we provide:

• 34 days annual leave a year (pro rata)
• An environment that embraces work life balance.
• A culture that celebrates diversity and welcomes everyone.
• Dedicated well-being time to all our people each week.
• A Cycle to Work Scheme to make owning a bicycle more affordable.

Additional Support when you need it

We know that sometimes you may face challenges or life events that mean you need additional support.

• We provide a comprehensive employee assistance programme with remote access to resources and in person support whenever required.
• We have a special leave policy ensuring everyone in the organisation receives the support they need during difficult times.

More than just a workplace

• You will be entitled to take 5 days paid leave per year to undertake voluntary work to support the communities we serve.
• We will encourage you to grow your networks across Wales, the UK and internationally.
• We have an active social committee who offer a range of activities for our people to come together outside the work setting. You can participate as much or as little as you want.

Personal and professional development

• Once you’re offered a post, we will get to know you and work with you to develop a personalised onboarding plan which considers your experience, skills, learning style and knowledge.
• We’ll help you shape your development plans with personalised career conversations and objectives, taking account of delivery goals alongside your career aspirations and helping you own your career.
• We support all our staff to learn or improve their Welsh language skills.

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

We are really interested in you as an individual and what you will bring to our organisation.

Our assessment process is designed to help us get to know you better enabling us to appoint someone who will thrive in the role and who shares our organisational values.

If you are interested in working with us, please send us your application and personal statement through Civil Service Jobs.

The following attributes/experience will be assessed at sift stage:

Attributes

• Drive - You demonstrate strategic thinking and a results-oriented approach.
• Reflective - You critically assess your decisions and actions, seeking to learn from both successes and failures.

Experience

• Proven ability to understand and interpret policy priorities, working collaboratively to develop strategies and implementation options with maximum impact.
• Knowledge of the tertiary education and research sector in Wales.

To be fair to everyone who applies, we won’t accept:

• Late applications
• Applications with missing or incomplete information
• Personal statements over 1,250 words

The deadline for application submission is Sunday 25 January.

Applications are welcome in Welsh and will not be treated less favourably than those submitted in English.

All applications will be notified of their outcomes via Civil Service Jobs at sift and interview stage.

Candidates who successfully navigate the sift stage will be required to complete an online exercise to enable us to determine their behavioural and personality preferences. Immediately on completion you will be given a report which highlights your strengths plus some development tips to help you prepare for interview. Candidates should note that the online exercise is not intended to eliminate anyone from consideration. Instead, it serves as a tool to aid in the decision-making process.

Following this, you will be required to participate in an interview and a presentation both of which will be conducted on Wednesday 18 February.

In addition to the attributes assessed at sift stage, the remaining attributes will also be assessed at interview:

• Honest - You build trust through consistent and reliable behaviour.
• Experience of developing and/or implementing policy, ideally within the tertiary education or public.

We strive for a diverse and inclusive workplace and we want to help you demonstrate your full potential whatever type of assessment is used. We are happy to discuss any person-centred adjustments required to the recruitment process. Please contact swyddi@medr.cymru

We're looking forward to meeting everyone invited to interview at our headquarters in 2, Capital Quarter, Cardiff. We don’t usually pay travel expenses, but if this presents a real barrier to your attendance in person or if you require a reasonable adjustment, please let us know in advance by emailing swyddi@medr.cymru so we can discuss and agree arrangements prior to your interview.

Following interview we are committed to offering constructive and actionable feedback to support you on your future career journey.

Next steps

Interested…? Want to find out more?

We know how important it is for you to find out more about us so we will be holding a virtual information session for candidates on Tuesday 13 January at 2pm on Microsoft Teams. This session will not be recorded.

This will be an opportunity for you to hear more about our organisation; the role and how we invest in our people.

If you would like to attend, register by emailing swyddi@medr.cymru.

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.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.

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

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).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 : People and Culture Team
• Email : swyddi@medr.cymru

Recruitment team

• Email : swyddi@medr.cymru

Attachments

Swydd Ddisgrifiad - Uwch Reolwr Cydraddoldeb a Lles Opens in new window (pdf, 252kB)Job description - Senior Equality and Welfare Manager Opens in new window (pdf, 248kB)Canllaw i Ymgeiswyr ar Lunio Datganiad Personol Opens in new window (pdf, 112kB)A Candidate's guide to crafting a personal statement Opens in new window (pdf, 113kB)