Development Officer Jobs
About us
Crisis is the national charity for people experiencing homelessness. We know that homelessness is not inevitable. We know that together we can end it.
The Homelessness and Housing Law Specialist Advisor will work alongside our client services teams across England, to prevent and end homelessness for people we support. Providing expert advice, support and advocacy to our staff and members in the most complex cases.
Salary: £38,585 (regions) or £42,746 (London) per annum
Hours: 35 hours per week (open to compressed hours in line with Crisis’ Flexible Working Policy)
Location: To be based in any of the Crisis Skylights in Edinburgh, Newcastle, Liverpool, Birmingham, Oxford, South Wales, Central London, Croydon, or Brent, but with home working as an option in line with Crisis’ Hybrid Working Policy
About the role
We are looking for an expert on homelessness legislation (the Homelessness Reduction Act) and relevant housing legislation to contribute to Crisis’ mission of ending homelessness. You will provide advice and casework covering complex areas of both housing and homelessness legislation to frontline employees working directly with people experiencing homelessness and at risk of homelessness in England. You will be an advocate for our members, by using housing law knowledge to request temporary housing from local authorities, for those who are street homeless. You will have the opportunity to produce housing law briefings, template letters and a toolkit of resources including checklists to support staff when working with beneficiaries.
About you
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Demonstrable track record of successfully preventing and relieving people’s homelessness through advocacy and the application of relevant homelessness and housing law, including complex cases such as people with different immigration status.
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Expert knowledge of relevant homelessness and housing legislation, including Housing Act 1996 Parts VI and VII, Homelessness Act 2002 Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, Protection for Eviction Act 1977, Landlord and Tenant Act 1985
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Knowledge of the issues affecting homeless people and the impact and interaction of welfare and immigration policies on homelessness
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Familiarity with local authority housing options services and their processes
You may have experience in, Housing and Homelessness Law, Local Authority Homelessness or Housing Options teams, Advice and advocacy, specialist casework.
We believe diversity is a strength, and our aim is to make sure that Crisis truly reflects the communities we serve. We are actively working towards our organisation being a place where everyone can thrive and make their best contribution to our mission of ending homelessness for good. We know that the more perspectives, voices, and experiences we can bring to this work, the better. We particularly welcome applications from people who have lived experience of homelessness, and people from all marginalised groups, communities, and backgrounds.
Working at Crisis
As a member of the team, you will have access to a wide range of employee benefits including:
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Interest free loans for travel season ticket, cycle to work, and deposit to secure a tenancy
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Pension scheme with an employer contribution of 8.5%
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28 days’ annual leave
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Enhanced maternity, paternity, shared parental, and adoption pay
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Flexible working around the core hours 10am-4pm
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And more! (Full list of benefits available on website)
Alongside our excellent staff benefits, we will support your ongoing development to build your skills, experience, and career.
When you join us, you will have the opportunity to join our staff diversity networks, which aim to champion issues across the organisation, enable staff to be their authentic and best selves and contribute to making Crisis a truly diverse organisation.
How to apply
If this sound likes the opportunity for you, please click on the 'Apply for Job' button below.
Closing date: Sunday 14 April 2024 (at 23:59)
Interviews will be held W/C 22 April 2024
Accessibility
We want our recruitment process to be as accessible as possible. If you need us to make an adjustment or provide additional support as you apply for a role, please email our Talent Acquisition team to discuss how we can help.
Registered Charity Numbers: E&W1082947, SC040094
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Job Title: Senior Policy Research Officer
Directorate: Strategy and Knowledge
Team/Department (if specific): Policy and Public Affairs
Salary range: £35,423 (plus £3,366 London weighting)
Location: London (hybrid working, with at least one day- Tuesday- in the office). The post holder will occasionally be expected to travel to locations across the UK.
Working hours: 35 hours (flexible working may be considered)
Date Written/ Amended: March 2024
Context and Background
The NSPCC's vision is that together, we can stop child abuse and neglect. Through the collective power of our staff, volunteers, supporters, partners, and over 100 years of experience we will move closer to achieving that vision.
We launched our ten-year strategy in 2021, which is centred around three impact goals. This is the difference we want to make by 2031:
1. Everyone plays their part to prevent child abuse: we'll work together to make it easier for everyone to play their part and create a social safety net that prevents child abuse and neglect.
2. Every child is safe online: together, we'll transform the online world, so it's safe for every child to go online.
3. Children feel safe, listened to and supported: more children will be able to speak out, so they feel safe, listened to and understood - and abuse doesn't shape their future.
The Policy and Public Affairs (PAPA) team is part of the Strategy and Knowledge Directorate at the NSPCC. The Directorate exists to help shape the world around us - and what the NSPCC does - so that it reflects what we have learned and can help keep children safe from abuse.
The PAPA team works across the four nations of the UK to influence legislation, policy and practice to ensure they are as effective as possible in keeping children safe. We focus on policy priorities through our five core workstreams: the child protection system and children's social care; early years and health; child sexual abuse; online safety; and young victims and witnesses.
We are recruiting a Senior Policy Research Officer to develop and deliver our early years and health policy work to deliver real change and reform in the best interests of children.
The post holder will work in the UK/England part of the Policy and Affairs Team focussed on influencing the Westminster Government. The role involves a variety of responsibilities including policy research, policy development and public affairs. This is a great opportunity to drive policy work in an exciting policy area, by building a strong evidence base and contributing to effective influencing strategies.
Job purpose
The Senior Policy Research Officer will be responsible for undertaking policy research to achieve the NSPCC's strategic goals, using their skills and experience to strengthen the NSPCC's impact on public policy relating to the early years and health. In doing so, they will make a significant contribution to protecting the youngest children from abuse and neglect
Key relationships - Internal
· Reports to the England Policy and Public Affairs Manager
· Colleagues in the wider Policy and Public Affairs team across the UK
· Colleagues in the Media and Campaigns teams
· Colleagues in the Research and Evidence team
· Colleagues in the Services directorate (to ensure policy development is informed by experiences and learning from our frontline professionals/ volunteers)
· Colleagues in the Participation Unit (to ensure the involvement of young people in policy and influencing work)
Key relationships - External
· Key civil servants and policy advisers in the UK Government
· MPs and Peers in the UK Parliament
· Colleagues in relevant voluntary and statutory agencies
· Practitioner bodies
· Key academics, researchers and research networks
Main duties and responsibilities
· Develop and maintain a high level of expertise on priority policy areas, with lead responsibility for early years and health policy.
· Scope, develop and refine NSPCC policies on priority policy issues, putting forward the economic case for change where possible.
· Analyse a wide range of primary and secondary sources of evidence (such as official data sets and statistics, policy documents, academic literature, economic analyses, FOls and survey data) to develop innovative and evidence-based policy solutions to complex problems.
· Prepare high-quality policy outputs such as briefings, summaries, consultation responses, papers and presentations for internal and external audiences.
· Contribute to the delivery of our research activity, working with teams across NSPCC to assess policy and evidence needs, then design and undertake impactful research projects to address these.
· Contribute to the commissioning of methodologically robust and ethically sound research to investigate a substantial child protection challenge, including by devising clearly defined requirements for the work.
· Manage policy research projects from development and commissioning stage through to completion, providing direction and supervision to ensure the highest standards of delivery.
· Develop and maintain a network of key contacts across parliament, the civil service, and civil society, using this network to amplify the NSPCC's voice and take advantage of opportunities to influence policy making.
· Represent the NSPCC on relevant internal and external advisory groups, meetings, and stakeholder events.
· Act as media spokesperson for the NSPCC on relevant subject areas, including live and pre-recorded interviews as well as background discussions with journalists on policy relating to early years and health.
Responsibilities for all Staff within the Strategy and Knowledge Directorate
There is a set of responsibilities for all staff within each directorate.
· A commitment to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people
· To maintain an overview of child protection policy and practice
· To maintain an awareness of own and other's health and safety and comply with NSPCC's Health and Safety procedures
· An active commitment to promoting ED&I, safeguarding and trauma informed practice
· An agile approach to work
· To maintain and develop competence in the use of IT systems
Person specification
1) Strong support for the NSPCC's mission and values.
2) Good understanding of child protection, early years, health or related public policy areas combined with knowledge of the wider legal, government and media context.
3) Excellent policy development skills, with the ability to develop and refine policy solutions to complex problems.
4) Proven ability to undertake research (qualitative and/ or quantitative) and analyse findings, with an ability to design methodologically robust and ethically sound research that is delivered to a high standard and agreed timescales.
5) Experience of successfully presenting research accurately to make a clear and compelling case for policy and legislative change.
6) Excellent communication skills including a clear and concise writing style, combined with good oral presentation skills, that can be tailored to a variety of audiences.
7) Good public affairs skills, with strong knowledge of parliamentary processes, sound political judgement, and experience of contributing to the delivery of influencing strategies to secure support from decision makers in parliament and beyond.
8) Ability to work on own initiative with strong organisational and project management skills, including demonstrable experience of project managing small research projects, working at speed and under pressure when required, while successfully managing project progress, risks and quality.
9) Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to build constructive working relationships with external stakeholders, as well as to work effectively as part of an internal, cross departmental team.
Safer Recruitment
As an organisation, we are committed to creating and fostering a culture that promotes safeguarding and the welfare of all children and adults at risk.
Our safer recruitment practices support this by ensuring that there is a consistent and thorough process of obtaining, collating, analysing and evaluating information from and about candidates to ensure that all persons appointed are suitable to work with our children and adults.
The recruitment and selection of our people will be conducted in a professional, timely and responsive manner and in compliance with current employment legislation, and relevant safeguarding legislation and statutory guidance.
Our principles:
Always seek to recruit the best candidate for the role based on merit including their skills, experience, motivation and competencies. Our robust recruitment and selection process should ensure the identification of the person best suited to the role and the organisation.
• Committed to diversity and equality of opportunity and will interview all applicants (internal and external) who self-declare at application as having a disability and who meet the minimum requirements in the person specification of the vacancy they are applying for.
• We will make reasonable adjustments at all stages of the recruitment process in order to enable successful candidates who declare disabilities to start working or volunteering their time with us.
• Any current member of staff or volunteer who wishes to apply for vacancies and is suitably qualified will be considered and addressed fairly and objectively based on their merit.
• As an organisation committed to safeguarding, we will ensure all under 18's joining the organisation will have ongoing risk assessments to ensure their role and activities are safe and appropriate.
• All documentation relating to candidates will be treated confidentially in accordance with the GDPR legislation.
Role Description
The Peter Sowerby Foundation is a significant, charitable grant-maker, supporting work in the fields of health, education and community, the arts and the environment.
Registered with the Charity Commission in 2011, the Foundation aims to fulfil the charitable aims of its late settlor, Dr Peter Sowerby, who was a retired GP from rural North Yorkshire and founding partner in Egton Medical Information Systems (EMIS), which now provides database and records management software for over 10,000 healthcare organisations in the UK.
The Foundation is currently managed by a board of four Trustees. These include David Aspinall, Chair of Trustees; Dr David Stables, Peter Sowerby’s former GP partner and an expert in management information systems; Sara Siegel Poulios, lead partner in Deloitte’s Healthcare Strategy who has been seconded to senior positions in the Department of Health and NHS, and Dr Carole Longson, Chief Scientific Officer at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI).
Since it was established in 2013, the Foundation has awarded hundreds of grants. Some of these have been small grants to local, grass-roots organisations, whilst others have been to large, well-established charities and educational institutions. In total, the Foundation has awarded c. £15 million in grants since inception.
The Foundation currently receives grant solicitation and directorial support, under contract, from Cause4 and an outsourced finance function provided by FLB Accountants.
The Foundation is currently seeking a new Administrator to the Board.
The Administrator will provide an efficient support and administrative service to the Board (especially the Chair) by providing co-ordination for grant execution, board administration and governance compliance.
Other duties will include supporting administrative duties as required by the Trustees and their advisers.
Specific Responsibilities:
Governance
· Supporting the Chair and trustees in ensuring that the charity law and regulatory requirements of reporting and public accountability are complied with.
· Ensuring that the Foundation’s internal governance policies are comprehensive and regularly reviewed in accordance with Charity Commission guidelines.
Administration
· Coordinating Board meetings.
· Liaising with the Chair/Grant Manager to plan, arrange agendas and support the development of papers for trustee meetings, along with the preparation of the subsequent minutes.
· Providing secretarial support to the Chair and trustees – for example, note taking at meetings or arranging additional meetings and visits to grantees.
· Providing the Foundation’s advisors with administrative support as required, for example, related to grant calls generating large numbers of applications.
· Supporting the sourcing of other external contractors – for example, expert evaluators.
· Providing systems support to Trustees and Advisers (remote systems) and liaising with external IT consultants to ensure the good maintenance and operation of the IT network and website.
· Supporting the development of the Foundation’s external communications – for example, implementing agreed changes to the Foundation’s website.
· Undertaking other administrative duties as required.
Financial support
· Liaising with accountants and auditors, especially in the preparation of annual statutory accounts.
· Supporting the Chair in ensuring that grant payments/invoices are paid.
· Supporting the Chair in liaising with outsourced banking and investment management functions.
Person Specification
Administration skills
· Excellent administration and organisational skills.
· Previous experience in a charity or grant making organisation and/or an understanding and experience of the processes of grant-making and monitoring of impact.
· Strong project management skills and experience of successful project delivery including managing outsourced contractors.
· Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to manage and work with a range of different stakeholders, both within and outside of the organisation.
· An understanding of, or experience in, using CRM or grant management systems.
Governance skills
· A good working knowledge of charitable governance in the UK and the Charity Commission regulatory framework and direct experience of supporting Trustees to achieve good governance.
Financial skills
· An excellent understanding of budgets and financial processes.
· A good working knowledge of the input and analysis of financial information using Microsoft Excel and related software.
General
· An alignment with the objectives of the Foundation.
Equal Opportunities
We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds. Our definition of diversity encompasses responding to issues around race, ethnicity, faith, disability, age, gender, sexuality, class and economic disadvantage and any social and institutional barriers.