Reference number
402216
Salary
£38,764 – £46,000
Please read the attached Candidate Pack for more details on salary and pensions.
Job grade
Other
Senior Associate
Contract type
Permanent
Loan
Secondment
Length of employment
This is a permanent appointment; however, we will consider loans and secondments of up to 2 years.
Business area
OFWAT – Office of the Chief Executive – Communications and Engagement Team
Type of role
Communications / Marketing
Other
Working pattern
Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time
Number of jobs available
2
Location
Birmingham (B5 4UA) or London (E14 4HD) based with hybrid working
About the job
Job summary
We have an opportunity for 2 Stakeholder Engagement Audience Leads to join our Communications and Engagement team within the Office of the Chief Executive Directorate.
We are Ofwat, the Water Services Regulation Authority, a non-ministerial government department responsible for regulating the water sector in England and Wales.
Our work is high-profile and fast-moving, within a dynamic and agile environment. The work that you’ll be involved in every day will help us to deliver our strategy, to make us the regulator we want to be and help the sector to deliver for customers and society.
You can find out more about why you should join Ofwat, our strategy, values and our framework for success in the attached Information for Candidates Pack.
Job description
The Role
The Stakeholder Engagement team leads the development and delivery of strategic stakeholder engagement activity across Ofwat, ensuring that our stakeholders are effectively and meaningfully engaged across our work. The team was established in August 2024 and is working to embed a refreshed approach to managing stakeholder relationships within Ofwat.
We have two Stakeholder Engagement Audience Lead vacancies, each with a different audience specialism:
- Environment Stakeholder
- Customer Stakeholder
The respective post-holders will manage our strategic approach to relationships with the given audience group, ensuring planned engagement supports overarching objectives and reflects the interests and needs of stakeholders. The role will involve owning the coordination, design and delivery of specialist engagement with these audiences, for example managing expert stakeholder panels to support regular engagement.
Success in this role will look like enabling Ofwat to build more collaborative, consistent relationships with these stakeholders, with insight from the audiences regularly captured, shared effectively and used to support colleagues across Ofwat to inform their work and decision-making. You’ll develop a solid understanding of the views and interests of your specialist audience and will be able to use this knowledge to advise senior Ofwat leaders on the most appropriate approaches to engaging and involving these partners.
Key deliverables:
In this role you will be expected to:
- Lead the planning, coordination and delivery of Ofwat’s strategic approach to managing relationships with environment / customer stakeholders. Use audience insight to develop audience plans that outline our key objectives for engagement with environment / customer stakeholders and strategy for achieving these.
- Advise the Chair, Chief Executive and Senior Leadership Team on their engagement with environment / customer stakeholders, including for bilateral meetings, speaking engagements, events and visits.
- Working closely with environment / customer policy teams in Ofwat, understanding their strategic priorities and ensuring engagement plans support effective deliver of teams’ work. Working across Ofwat to ensure environment and customer stakeholders are considered as part of all Ofwat’s policy making.
- Build effective relationships with stakeholders that support the design and delivery of strategic engagement by senior leaders.
- Co-produce the design of key forums for regular engagement with environment / customer stakeholders, with both internal and external partners, to ensure Ofwat has appropriate means to routinely bring the voices of environment / customer stakeholders into the organisation to inform our thinking and understanding of strategic corporate priorities.
- Produce high quality written communications to support stakeholder engagement, including correspondence, briefing materials, and presentations.
- Deliver an effective insight management process for environment / customer stakeholders, ensuring insight is captured, and shared to effectively influence policy development and decision-making.
- Monitor and track environment / customer stakeholder sentiment and play a proactive role in delivery of stakeholder research. Use this to effectively evaluate engagement and ensure continuous improvement of our approach.
- Maintain accurate records of Ofwat’s interactions with environment / customer stakeholders.
Person specification
To be successful in this role you will need the below essential attributes, experience, skills and knowledge.
Experience, skills and knowledge
- Lead criterion: Strong experience in designing and delivering strategic stakeholder engagement plans to support corporate priorities, including objective setting, strategy design and delivery, evaluation.
- Experience in building and maintaining strong relationships with stakeholders, both internally and externally and including senior leaders.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills and attention to detail, including the ability to write clearly and in a tailored way for a range of audiences.
- Knowledge of the environment / customer landscape, including the key organisations with an interest in and influence on Ofwat.
- The ability to work collaboratively with people across teams and levels, ensuring the effective involvement of a range of internal partners in the development and delivery of engagement plans.
- Desirable: Experience of event design and management to support stakeholder engagement.
Attributes
7. Builds trust
8. Makes relationships count
9. Promotes collaboration
10. Delivers outcomes
Attributes as per Ofwat’s Framework for Success for the relevant salary grade. You can read more about Attributes here.
Benefits
Why You Should Join Us:
We’re forward-thinking, creative, innovative, and ambitious. We constantly push the boundaries and embrace new ways of working.
With us, your work matters, your voice is heard, and your impact is felt. Ours is a culture of trust, flexibility, autonomy, collaboration, and innovation. We all want positive change for water customers, the environment, and the future of water.
But for us, change is more than what happens on the outside – we’ve always pushed boundaries internally, too. From becoming the first Civil Service organisation to achieve ‘Smarter Working’ status, to gaining our prestigious ‘Smarter Working Maturity’ award, we’ve consistently demonstrated our commitment to embracing innovative ways of working. Our people do their best work when given freedom over where, when, and how they work. Which is why we trust our teams to balance meaningful collaboration in the office with the flexibility of working from home.
You will also benefit from:
- Excellent employer pension contributions of up to 28.97%. You can find further details about pension schemes under Terms and Conditions in the Candidate Pack.
- 25 days’ annual leave (increasing to 30 with each year of service) plus bank holidays and an extra 2.5 days of privilege leave
- Access to exclusive discounts on a variety of goods and services, including retail outlets,
theatre tickets, holidays, insurance, and a gym membership - Flexible working arrangements that suit your lifestyle
- Fees paid for membership of relevant professional bodies
- Up to 3 volunteering days per year
- Recognition vouchers scheme
- Generous shared parental leave and pay
- Enhanced sick pay
- Regular development opportunities
- Health and wellbeing initiatives
- Cycle-to-work scheme
- Season ticket loan for home-to-office travel
- Free eye tests and contribution to lenses/spectacles for VDU users
Things you need to know
Selection process details
How to apply
Apply through the Civil Service Jobs website where you’ll be asked to create an account and complete an application form (CV and personal statement). If you’re unable to make an electronic application, please contact recruitment@ofwat.gov.uk and we will support you in completing your application.
Please see the candidate guidance on our website for more detail and tips on how to best make your application and prepare for interview.
Please ensure you have submitted your application in full ahead of the deadline listed below. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to consider late applications.
Selection timetable
- Closing date: 07 May 2025 at 23:55
- Sifting: Week Commencing 12 May 2025
- Interview date(s): 20 & 21 May 2025
Assessment Process
Sift Stage – Blind Sifting
We operate a blind sifting model to eliminate bias. All candidate identifying information will be removed from applications.
At sift stage we assess your application (CV and personal statement) against essential criteria 1, 2, 3 and 4 listed above. Please ensure you provide enough evidence in your application to demonstrate how you meet the criteria.
Use your personal statement to address the Lead Criterion and tell us about:
- Your experience in designing and delivering strategic stakeholder engagement plans to support corporate priorities, including objective setting, strategy design and delivery, evaluation
*In the event of receiving a large number of applications, a pre-sift may take place on just the lead criterion.
Please ensure that anything submitted as part of your application is factually accurate, and you are not presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by AI, as your own.
** Please note that if a high volume of candidates meet the minimum pass mark at sift stage, we will only progress the highest scoring candidates to interview. Candidates not invited to interview, who have achieved the minimum pass mark, will be placed ‘on hold’ until the final stage of the assessment process is completed. Should the role/s remain unfilled, candidates placed ‘on hold’ may be invited to interview in merit order.
Interview Stage – Transparent Interviews and Exercise
At interview stage we will test against essential skills, experience, knowledge and attributes set out above.
Our transparent interview process involves candidates receiving a list of attribute-based questions in advance. This has been proven to help neurodiverse candidates and others to perform better at interview and is part of our inclusive culture.
You can read more about attributes and our Framework for success here.
As part of the interview process, we will require candidates to complete a short unseen written exercise. Further details will be provided to candidates upon invitation to interview.
Please ensure anything you present in your interview answers is factually accurate, and you are not presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by AI, as your own. You may expect follow up questions.
Please note that the interviews will be conducted via video conferencing software (Microsoft Teams).
It may be necessary for a second stage interview, which will be communicated to the successful candidates, if required.
If the assessment process identifies more appointable candidates than roles available, a reserve list will be created for 12 months from which further appointments in merit order can be made.
If you have any queries about any aspect of this role, selection process, or you require any reasonable adjustments please email recruitment@ofwat.gov.uk
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.
Nationality requirements
This job is broadly open to the following groups:
- UK nationals
- nationals of the Republic of Ireland
- nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
- individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
- Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)
Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission’s recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.
Diversity and Inclusion
The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).
Apply and further information
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.
The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).
Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name :recruitment@ofwat.gov.uk
- Email :recruitment@ofwat.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email :recruitment@ofwat.gov.uk
Further information
Complaints procedure – The process of recruitment and assessment embraces the principles of fair and open competition and best practice. The first is to maintain the principle of selection for appointment to the Civil Service on merit on the basis of fair and open competition as outlined in the Civil Service Recruitment Principles. The second is to promote an understanding of the https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-code/the-civil-service-code which sets out the constitutional framework in which all civil servants work and the values they are expected to uphold, and to hear and determine appeals made under it. If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the recruitment principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should contact recruitment@ofwat.gov.uk in the first instance. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from us, you can contact the Civil Service Commission at info@csc.gov.uk
Attachments
Stakeholder Engagement Audience Lead BC 925 & 926 Opens in new window(pdf, 669kB)
