Press Officer Jobs in London, Greater London

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 Policy and Public Affairs team works across the four nations of the UK to influence legislation, policy and practice to ensure they are as effective as possible in preventing harm and abuse of children. We develop and hold the NSPCC’s positions on key public policy issues and harness these to influence policy makers and external stakeholders across the UK.  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 Policy and Regulatory Manager to play a central role in delivering our strategic ambitions to transform the online world so it safe for children. The post holder will play a management role in the high performing PAPA team which has a track record of successful influencing to ensure legal, policy and regulatory frameworks are fit for purpose in preventing, responding, and tackling child abuse and neglect.

The Policy and Regulatory Manager will spearhead our policy and influencing activity to make the Online Safety Act work for children. This will include delivering our regulatory strategy. They will be responsible for leading policy projects that contribute towards the NSPCC’s strategic objectives, using their skills and experience to strengthen our impact on public policy and regulatory decisions. In turn, they will make a significant contribution to keeping children safe.

They will play a key role in delivering our policy and influencing activity with figures in government departments, regulators, and civil society, with regular liaison with industry, and other sectoral experts.

The Policy and Regulatory Manager will manage cross-cutting projects across directorates, ensuring we can amplify the voice of the child by channelling the expertise held across the NSPCC’s policy, research, and knowledge teams, and from our wider services.

They will be responsible for line managing  two policy and public affairs team members and supporting  them to develop robust policy and regulatory analysis.

The successful candidate will have a good understanding of online harms or related public policy areas and in-depth knowledge of regulatory structures and processes from experience of working in regulated sectors or for a regulator.

Job purpose

The Policy and Regulatory Manager will deliver public policy projects to support the NSPCC’s strategic objective to transform online protections for children. They will use their skills and experience to strengthen the NSPCC’s impact on public policy and online safety regulation.

The Manager will ensure our policy calls are robust and well-evidenced and develop policy strategies and regulatory liaison to leverage our expertise and secure necessary changes to legislation, regulation, and industry practices.

They will develop impactful and influential relationships with regulators, and with senior stakeholders across Government, parliament, industry, and civil society to inform crucial decisions about legislation and regulatory design, and in turn, the development of regulatory schemes.

The Policy and Regulatory Manager will play a lead role in delivering the NSPCC’s strategy of amplifying the voices and experience of children. The postholder will lead our regulatory engagement and will leverage our research and insight to influence the shape of regulation. This will include representing the NSPCCs views on the design of the online safety regulatory framework and responding to formal consultation.

They will play a leading role within the child safety online (CSO) workstream within the wider Policy and Public Affairs team and will line manage members of staff and help them develop their policy and public affairs skill sets.

Key relationships - Internal

· Reports to Associate Head, Policy and Public Affairs - Child Safety Online

· To line manage a Senior Policy and Public Affairs Officer (in post) and a Policy and Public Affairs Officer (recruiting)

· Colleagues in the London-based Policy and Public Affairs team

· The Policy and Public Affairs teams in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland

· Colleagues in the Strategy and Knowledge directorate including the CSO Solutions Labs

· Media and Campaigns teams

· Services Directorate

· NSPCC Senior Management and trustees, including Policy Committee

Key relationships - External

· Key civil servants in central government departments (such as the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

· Regulators (Ofcom, Information Commissioner)

· Technology companies, including social media and gaming companies

· Civil society organisations working on online harms

· Law enforcement agencies e.g., National Crime Agency

· Other children’s charities

· Parliamentarians

Main duties and responsibilities

Policy and influencing

· Develop and deliver effective regulatory strategies which; identify achievable goals and objectives are underpinned by robust, evidence-based policy positions are high quality, impactful and support the NSPCC’s strategy ambition to transform the online world so that it is safe for children. 

· Lead the NSPCCs thinking and approach to Ofcom’s codes of practices.

· Lead and oversee the development of high-quality public policy development and influencing projects to deliver strategic, high impact policy outcomes

· Build excellent relationships with civil service, parliamentary, industry and civil society stakeholders, and leverage these to deliver high impact policy change

· Deliver persuasive, evidenced policy interventions to ensure child-centred decisions on regulatory design and delivery

Leadership and representing the NSPCC

· Provide leadership, direction, and line management to two policy and public affairs team members

· Be a key point of contact for internal and external requests for information and advice about NSPCC’s positions on complex technological and regulatory positions

· Use strong project management skills to plan the delivery of policy development and aligned public affairs work, planning both your and colleagues’ time effectively

· Work closely with Press and Campaigns teams to deliver effective and authoritative external messaging, and manage cross-cutting projects across directorates

· Represent the NSPCC on relevant issues and where appropriate, act as spokesperson for the NSPCC including through the media.

Responsibilities for all Staff within the Strategy and Knowledge Directorate

· A commitment to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, young people and adults at risk.

· 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

· Strong support for NSPCC’s mission and values.

· Excellent understanding of online safety, child protection, tech regulation or related public policy areas.

· Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, with the clear ability to influence a wide range of audiences verbally and in writing, and to tailor information to different audiences.

· Strong analytical skills, with an ability to interpret a range of data and research to design compelling, evidence-based policy solutions

· Excellent policy development skills, including being able to draw up credible positions and policy interventions on complex and highly nuanced subject matter

· Excellent stakeholder and persuasive skills, with evidence of delivering tangible change through influencing key relationships (including with regulators, government and industry), forming tactical and strategic networks, and leveraging political and external dynamics

· Evidence of team management skills and experience of managing complex and competing projects with a strong track record for delivery at speed and under pressure, responding to tight external deadlines.

· An inspiring team player, with a collaborative and flexible approach and the ability to work across teams and directorates well

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.