Petition Advisor

**Salary: “Base salary: £33,850pa to c.£42,350pa depending on skills and experience. In addition, we offer flexible benefits fund of 15% which is paid on top base salary and is fully pensionable, as well as a range of competitive benefits - check them out in the Benefits section on our website.**

HS2 Ltd endeavours to ensure everyone working for us and with us feels included, thrives and achieves their full potential. In practice, this means we are positive and inclusive about making adjustments, providing flexible working, encouraging our staff networks to flourish and providing personal and professional development opportunities.

As a **Petition Advisor at HS2 **you will be supporting the Petition Manager, the Petition Adviser is responsible for supporting engagement and negotiations to resolve petitions from stakeholders directly affected by the Phase 2B Western Leg route in support of the successful passage of the hybrid Bill for the Phase 2B Western Leg of HS2 through Parliament.

**About the role**:

- Support and deliver the petition minimisation and management strategy to reduce the number of petitions and/or the issues raised in Select Committee.
- Support the Senior Petition Manager and the Petition Manager as required with the more complex and high risk petitions that balance the needs of the petitioner and the cost, programme and political risks to the Government and that achieve value for money, negotiating agreements to a conclusion that will be acceptable for sign off by the HS2 Ltd Board and Government stakeholders;
- Identify key issues, costs and risks arising from petitions.
- Establish and maintain effective working relationships with petitioners across the short, medium and long term; Draft and obtain Parliamentary Agent approval of undertakings, assurances, and agreements that mitigate petitioner concerns.
- Prepare and present papers seeking approval for proposed undertakings, assurances, and agreements before approvals boards as required under governance arrangements.
- Deliver and manage negotiation support meetings, including agendas, briefings, taking minutes and following up actions.
- Prepare Petition Response Documents by tracking the development, production and sign-off of petition responses.
- Prepare materials for Select Committee, exhibits and Q&As.
- Prepare reports and briefs for senior management, Ministers, Counsel and Parliamentary Agents, often at short notice.
- Assimilate and compose technical information in a manner that is easy to understand for the purpose of use with petitioners and in Select Committee; including securing approvals through governance as required.
- Research issues relating to petition responses and briefings, commission additional professional or legal advice and robustly track progress through to successful resolution.
- Actively promote and embed Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in all your work, and support and comply with all organisational initiatives, policies and procedures on EDI

**About You**:
**Skills**:

- Ability to handle and manage high volume of work to agreed deadlines.
- Ability to deliver and track numerous complex issues to successful resolution.
- Ability to engage internally and externally on complex and wide-ranging issues.
- Ability to analyse information, and quickly develop an understanding of complex issues.
- Ability to convey complex technical information to non-technical audiences in writing and verbally.
- Communication skills, e.g., compiling agreements, reports, briefings and materials for use in Select Committee; Ability to work autonomously and efficiently within a small team; and
- Attention to detail skills - meticulous in all aspects of documentation, information support, processing, and production.

**Knowledge**:

- Knowledge of major infrastructure projects; and
- Knowledge of environmental, politically sensitive issues in major infrastructure projects.

**Type of experience**:

- Experience of working on major public sector infrastructure, politically sensitive or environmental projects.
- Stakeholder management experience, having dealt with objections to major infrastructure projects or significant development projects; and
- Business and operational experience of meeting demanding targets/objectives.