Parliamentary, Correspondence and Operations

**Details**:
**Reference number**:

- 252872**Salary**:

- £24,327 - £30,771- National - £24327 - £27101, London - £28050 - £30771**Job grade**:

- Executive Officer**Contract type**:

- Permanent**Business area**:

- CO - Strategy Delivery and Private Office**Type of role**:

- Operational Delivery
- Policy**Working pattern**:

- Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time**Number of jobs available**:

- 9Contents

Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location
- London, YorkAbout the job

**Job summary**:
The Parliamentary and Correspondence Team is a diverse and welcoming team, closely linked to Cabinet Office Ministerial Private Offices. Our role is to manage the Cabinet Office’s relationship with Parliament and the public.

Ministerial Private Offices and the Parliamentary and Correspondence Team (PCT) support Cabinet Office Ministers to deliver on their policy objectives and manifesto commitments. This involves providing timely and high quality policy advice, conveying ministerial decisions to the department, organising ministerial diaries, responding to ministerial correspondence, Parliamentary Questions and the full suite of parliamentary business (debates, legislation, select committee business etc).

**Job description**:
The Parliamentary, Correspondence and Operations Officer roles are an excellent opportunity to work at the heart of Government and to manage casework on a wide range of Cabinet Office policy issues.

**Written Parliamentary Questions Team**:The Cabinet Office Ministerial team answers around 150 written Parliamentary Questions each month to both Houses of Parliament. This is a key way in which Parliament scrutinises and holds our ministers to account. The Parliamentary Written Questions team is responsible for handling these questions, commissioning policy teams, quality assuring drafts and securing clearances with Cabinet Office ministers and special advisers. Our ministers place great importance on answering their questions to a high standard and on time - as a result, this is a high profile and exciting role with many opportunities to lead across the Cabinet Office and upwards to our ministers.** **The team is also responsible for drafting guidance for other departments on how to answer their questions, and for agreeing transfers of questions between departments. As such, there is daily opportunities to work with and negotiate across Whitehall.

**Correspondence Team**: The Correspondence Team is responsible for handling written correspondence from Parliamentarians, stakeholders and members of the public and liaising with relevant policy teams across the Cabinet Office to draft replies. The right of MPs to take up constituent cases and other issues directly with the Government is an important part of the democratic process and underlines the accountability of Ministers to Parliament and the public. As a result, we have ambitious targets and high standards for the quality and timeliness of all replies to correspondence.

**Operations and Digital Team**: The Cabinet Office also often receives correspondence that falls in the remit of other departments for response, and the Operations and Digital Branch aims to quickly and effectively transfer these cases to the right place, growing our collective understanding of cross Whitehall policy responsibilities and developing individual negotiation skills. The branch is also responsible for the maintenance and improvements of our case management system and processes, regularly leading projects that seek to transform and streamline our ways of working.

You will need to be adaptable when working with the rest of the Parliamentary and Correspondence Team to ensure all queries are answered on time, as well as liaise with policy teams across the department to ensure our deadlines are met. We resource our team flexibly to fit current departmental needs which gives team members regular opportunities to build new skills and deepen their understanding of the department.

**Person specification**:
Parliamentary Questions Drafters will be responsible for:

- Commissioning, coordinating, drafting and quality assuring answers to written questions from Members of the House of Commons and House of Lords, ensuring that these answers are cleared internally
- Managing the case working platform, e-case, to ensure cases are logged and progressed through the system
- Coordinating with No10 to agree which of the Prime Minister’s PQs the Cabinet Office will take and answer on his behalf
- Negotiating and arbitrating between departments to agree transfers of PQs to the right department to answer and to guide departments on how to answer questions tabled to multiple departments
- Guiding and training Cabinet Office policy teams on how to handle PQs and ensuring effective usage of internal casework management systems. Running training across the Cabinet Office to upskill all Policy teams on how to effectively respond to qu