23457 - Communication Manager

The Wales Office is the face of the UK Government in Wales and the voice of Wales in Westminster. We support the Secretary of State for Wales and the Ministerial team in representing Wales at the heart of Government. We work in partnership with other Government Departments and other stakeholders to deliver a stronger Wales within a strong United Kingdom.

Our departmental values are Commitment, Collaboration and Quality. These shape how we operate in a challenging, demanding, and fast paced environment which requires flexibility, transparency and professionalism.

The Wales Office has two sites, one in Cardiff and one in Whitehall. The successful candidate will be based in Cardiff or London, but travel between sites and elsewhere may be required in order to build relations with colleagues and stakeholders.

About the team:

The Wales Office Communications Team is a high-performing team that helps connect people across Wales with the work of the UK Government. We provide strategic communication advice to ministers and senior officials, manage media relations, deliver digital and social media content, and support ministerial visits and events.

Working at the heart of government, we collaborate closely with colleagues across Whitehall and the Government Communication Service to ensure UK Government delivery is communicated clearly, effectively and in ways that matter to Welsh audiences. We combine insight, evaluation, creativity and strong news judgement to deliver communication that is audience-focused, evidence-led and impactful.

The team is ambitious about modern government communications. Alongside supporting ministers and managing daily media activity, we are increasingly focused on direct-to-citizen communication, using digital channels and partnerships to tell authentic stories about the impact of UK Government policies and investment in communities across Wales.

As part of a small team, you will have the opportunity to work across multiple communication disciplines, take ownership of significant projects and develop strong relationships with senior decision-makers. No two days are the same, making this an ideal role for a communicator who enjoys variety, challenge and the chance to make a visible impact.

About the Role:

The Wales Office is seeking an experienced integrated communicator to play an important role in developing and delivering strategic communication that supports UK Government priorities across Wales.

You will develop expert communication advice for ministers and senior officials, helping to shape and deliver integrated communication strategies that build understanding of UK Government priorities and their impact across Wales.

This is a varied role spanning strategic communication, media relations, campaigns, digital communication and reputation management. You will work across disciplines to ensure communication activity is insight-driven, audience-focused and aligned with wider UK Government objectives.

A key aspect of the role will be supporting the Head of Communication to develop and deliver longer-term communication strategies across Wales Office priority policy areas. The successful candidate will lead the development of thematic communication plans, ensuring activity is informed by audience insight, aligned to ministerial priorities and evaluated to demonstrate impact and continuous improvement.

By joining a communications team, you will become a member of the Government Communication Service, a profession of over 7,000 communicators working in government departments, agencies and arm’s length bodies. You’ll benefit from continuous professional development from our new learning and development curriculum, a network of skilled communicators sharing best practice, mentoring opportunities, and more.

For more information on how becoming a part of the Communications Profession can support your career and development please visit the GCS careers page.

Key Responsibilities

We are looking for motivated and creative individual to join us and embark on an exceptional career in government communications.

Your key responsibilities will include:

• Strategic communication – support the Head of Communications in developing and delivering long-term communication strategies across priority policy and thematic areas, ensuring communication activity supports ministerial objectives and organisational priorities.
• Insight and evaluation – lead the development of audience insight, evaluation and communication performance reporting. Use evidence and data to shape communication activity, identify opportunities and provide strategic recommendations to senior leaders.
• Press office resilience and reputation management – provide expert media handling support, contribute to proactive and reactive communications activity, support major announcements and issues management, and provide resilience during periods of high operational demand, including participation in the out-of-hours rota.
• Relationships – develop and maintain strong working relationships with ministers, private offices, special advisers, senior officials, journalists, stakeholders and other government departments.
• Prioritising – understand government, departmental and ministerial priorities so you can communicate key messages clearly, accurately and creatively.
• Each member of the team takes part in an on-call system, for which there is an allowance, to take calls out-of-hours from the media. This is done on a rotational basis, and full training will be given.

The job description is not intended to be exhaustive, and it is likely that duties may be altered from time to time in the light of changing circumstances and after consultation with the postholder.

Person Specification

Please evidence how closely you match the essential criteria in your Statement of Suitability, which is up to 750 words.

Essential:

• Experience of developing strategic communication strategies that support organisational and ministerial objectives.
• Experience of using audience insight, research, evaluation and performance data to develop communication activity and measure success.
• Experience of providing strategic communication advice to senior stakeholders.
• Ability to identify emerging risks and opportunities and translate complex issues into effective communication approaches.
• Excellent understanding of the national news agenda, social media landscape and communication handling; strong news judgement and political awareness.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with experience producing high-quality content for a range of audiences and channels
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills - producing high-quality written content such as statements, press releases and briefings, for a range of different stakeholders and audiences.
• Strong organisational and planning skills, comfortable managing multiple priorities and working to tight deadlines.
• Strong networking skills with the confidence in building and maintaining a network of internal and external contacts.
• Strong team collaboration skills, work effectively as part of a team; contributing to shared goals, supporting colleagues and fostering a positive team environment.

Desirable:

• An ability to speak and write proficiently in the Welsh language is desirable for this post.

Recruitment Process:

This campaign will be undertaken using the Civil Service Success Profile framework. You will need to provide evidence in your application to cover the following behaviours:

• Seeing the Big Picture (Lead Behaviour) (Application & Interview)
• Communicating and Influencing (Interview Only)
• Delivering at Pace (Interview Only)

In the event of a high volume of applicants, we will sift only on the lead behaviour to create a shortlist for interview.

Technical Skills

We'll assess you against these Government Communication Service (GCS) technical skills during the selection process:

• Ideas: Turning evidence, insight and policy objectives into effective communication strategies.
• Impact: Evaluating communication activity and using evidence to improve future performance.

Additional Information

The Wales Office is not an employer in its own right and staff recruited to work at the Wales Office will be employees of the Ministry of Justice who provide employment services on our behalf.

This role requires SC level clearance. Applicants for National Security Clearance (SC) must be resident in the UK for 5 years immediately prior to their application for Security Clearance. If you have spent significant time abroad (a total of 6 months in the past 3 years), you would be required to give a reasonable account of the reasons why.

If you do not meet the above requirement, you may still be considered for the role if, for example:

• You have been serving overseas with HM Armed Forces or in some other official capacity as a representative of HM Government.
• You were studying abroad.
• You were living overseas with parents.