Communications and Engagement Lead

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

- 284528**Salary**:

- £50,155 - £60,781**Job grade**:

- Grade 7**Contract type**:

- Permanent**Business area**:

- DWP - People, Capability and Place**Type of role**:

- Project Delivery**Working pattern**:

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

- 1Contents

Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location
- Birmingham, Blackpool, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Pontypridd, SheffieldAbout the job

**Job summary**:
Do you want to be part of an energetic, innovative team and bring your skills to one of the biggest changes to the administration of the Civil Service in decades?

We’re looking for people who are flexible, intuitive and are comfortable taking high levels of volume, speed and complexity in their stride.

An exciting new role is available in the Synergy Programme, a cross-departmental group formed in response to Government Business Service’s request for individual departments to group together in ‘clusters’ to drive efficiencies, increase buying power and improve the quality of shared service to our end users - our people.

The Synergy Programme is the largest of five departmental clusters, comprising the Ministry of Justice, Department for Work and Pensions, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Home Office. The Department of Work and Pensions hosts the Synergy Programme. Your work will impact the Shared Services arrangements for the next 15 years, impacting over 50% of all Civil Servants - that’s 230,000 people across the four departments and arm’s length bodies.

Success of the Programme is crucial as Civil Servants rely on shared services to provide business critical tools in human resources, finance, payroll, and procurement. It affects everything we do, from joining a department as a new starter, the way we claim for expenses, how we buy goods and services such as our laptops and canteen provisions, to the way we receive our pensions when we retire.

**Job description**:
The successful applicant will be experienced in leading on the planning and implementation of communication strategies and plans across a range of channels and in supporting strategic engagement. The post holder will manage team members responsible for creating content and delivering the corporate communications to our stakeholders and (over time) to wider audiences.

This will through a multi-channel approach in a busy and expanding team, including articles, video and animation production, newsletters, briefings and events. The team are also the guardians of the cluster identity and brand and produce communication collateral to support the programme team.

The post holder will be an expert on audience preference, channel management and content creation, and will be across the latest communication trends and best practice. They will need a keen eye for detail and be able to draw out the creativity of their team.

The post holder will play an important role in our communications and engagement management team, using their knowledge, skills and experience to positively engage others to enable successful delivery within the programme. They will need to effectively manage competing priorities, while ensuring quality control is in place.

Responsibilities will include:

- Developing and managing delivery of a coherent, consistent and creative programme of communications for the programme both internally and externally.
- Providing strategic advice to our senior leadership team on audience, channels, branding, events and communications collateral.
- Managing team members to produce a variety of high-quality communications and briefing materials.
- Build effective and proactive relationships with colleagues across the programme ensuring you have a good knowledge of up-and-coming communication issues and opportunities and coaching colleagues and internal partners to develop communications activity.
- Horizon scanning to ensure Synergy is represented at appropriate conferences and events to promote our messages and playing a significant role in devising and delivering events, both virtually and in person.
- Developing effective mechanisms to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of our communications, ensuring evaluation is reported and using insight to shape messaging and content.
- Line manage and professionally develop team members.
- Manage the programme’s internal communication collaboratively with the Synergy People Group, initiating and delivering opportunities to celebrate and communicate programme successes.
- Communicate with staff and stakeholders and regularly undertake activities to engage and build trust in the work of the programme.

The above list is not exhaustive and may change over time depending on the requirements of the programme.

**Person specification**:
Applicants will initially be assessed on their personal statement against the following essential crite