Communications and Engagement Lead

London Borough of Ealing

Salary: £53,607.00 - £55,620.00 pa inclusive (Grade 13)

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 13 February 2025

REF: #EJR012918

Ealing is a highly diverse and vibrant borough in the west of London. Home to around 370,000 people, it is the third largest borough by population in London and is an exciting, diverse and challenging place to live and work. There are stark and longstanding inequities in health determinants – the ‘building blocks’ of health – like education, social connection, housing, and good jobs. This leads to poorer health and shorter lives for disadvantaged communities.

To help address this, the council is one of four London boroughs to be awarded £5 million from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to create the NIHR Health Determinants Research Collaboration Ealing. This will enable us to have the capacity and infrastructure to do meaningful research on the health determinants in Ealing, learning together how to promote more healthy, thriving and equitable communities. Our aim is to strengthen the collaboration, drive culture change, and embed inclusive community involvement.

Be part of this dynamic partnership of community leaders, academics, voluntary and community organisations and Ealing Council to shape this work.

We’re looking for an exceptional Communications and Engagement Lead to spearhead strategic planning and execution for two transformative areas of work within our Strategy and Change directorate.

You will lead strategic communications for Ealing’s Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC) and the Equalities & Engagement Team. Collaborate with diverse stakeholders to create inclusive, impactful content for local and national audiences, combining your communications expertise with community engagement best practices.

The right person will have a proven track record in strategic communications, excellent collaborative and decision-making skills, the ability to balance autonomy with teamwork to deliver high-quality outcomes and a commitment to using communications as a tool for driving engagement and equity.

If you are you passionate about creating impactful communication strategies that drive meaningful change, then we would love to hear from you.

By joining Ealing, you will be part of a respected, innovative and diverse London borough with a strong reputation for its commitment to health equity through stronger evidence informed decision making.

Currently, the majority of staff are hybrid working, with 2 days a week attendance required in Perceval House and 3 days virtually from home (this may change depending on the needs of the collaboration and council).

Ealing Council is committed to creating good jobs and delivering on its connected communities’ agenda. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive.

We therefore welcome applications from all residents of the borough, we particularly welcome applications from candidates who are entering the employment market in the early stages of their career and mid-career professionals, who are currently underrepresented in Ealing’s workforce.

Please note all applications will be determined on merit.

This post is subject to Ealing council’s enhanced vetting process.

Role Profile

Closing date: 13th February 2025

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Communications Improvement Adviser

Local Government Association

Salary: £44,660 per annum (includes London weighting)

Location: City of Westminster

Employment type: Fixed term or secondment, full time

Reference: 001502

Closing Date: 5pm, 20 January 2025

About the role

The LGA provides a range of different services to support our members with their communications - including comms reviews, best practice resources, events, crisis comms support and much more.

We are recruiting a Communications Improvement Adviser to help coordinate and deliver this support to communications teams and senior leaders in local government.

This is an exciting and challenging time for the sector, and you will play an important role in helping our members communicate and engage with their residents. Your main duties will include:

Creating best practice resources for local government communicators, chief executives and leaders
Coordinating and managing reviews of council communications functions and activities
Devising and organising best practice events and seminars
Providing expert advice and counsel to our member authorities
Working with colleagues to champion best practice and fresh thinking in public service communications

About you

Our ideal candidate will be a communications professional with a strong understanding of issues facing local government, excellent personal skills and a positive, flexible and adaptable approach. You will need experience of working in a political environment, and with a wide range of different internal and external stakeholders.

As a trusted adviser working with senior colleagues in local government on a daily basis, you will have excellent people skills and the ability to juggle complex and varied tasks. The successful applicant will work closely with colleagues across the LGA to ensure we provide our member authorities with the support they need.

The position is for a fixed term period of six months and is open to colleagues from local authorities to join us on a secondment basis, as well as to all other backgrounds.

You must have the right to work in the UK, the LGA are unfortunately unable to offer sponsorship visas. Evidence for the right to work in the UK will be requested at the interview stage.

To Apply

If you would like to be considered for the role, please complete the offline application form include a supporting statement detailing how you meet the criteria of the role and email this to Recruitment@local.gov.uk before the closing date.

We are specifically assessing candidates against the following criteria:

Experience of working in a communications and/or a political environment
A good understanding of issues facing local government communicators
Knowledge of public sector communications and wider communications best practice
Political nous, awareness and sensitivity to ensure credibility with politicians, managers and key stakeholders
A track record of delivering successful communications activity
Excellent written skills, with the ability to accurately summarise and convey complex information

Full Communications Improvement Adviser Job Description

Closing Date: 5pm, 20 January 2025

Interview Date: To be confirmed

We are in the process of transitioning our Applicant Tracking System. For this role, please complete the offline application form and email it to Recruitment@local.gov.uk.

We use anonymous recruitment, which is the practice of hiding candidates’ identities. This process involves removing any identifying information from candidates’ applications which includes names.

At the LGA we celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees where everyone is treated with dignity and respect. Our recruitment decisions are based on fair, open competition, with appointment on merit. The LGA are proud to be awarded a “Disability Confident Leader”. If you are require an reasonable adjustment, which is a change to the format or conditions of the recruitment process to accommodate any disability-related needs you may have. Please contact us via Recruitment@local.gov.uk

About us

The Local Government Association (LGA) is the national membership body for local authorities. We work on behalf of our member councils to support, promote and improve local government. We are a politically led, cross-party organisation that works on behalf of councils to ensure local government has a strong, credible voice with national government. We influence and set the political agenda on the issues that matter to councils to help them deliver local solutions to national problems.

We also provide councils with the tools and resources to respond to challenges present and emerging, and support improvement across the sector.

We value diversity and encourage applications from all sections of the community to this high-profile role.

Our benefits

LGA annual leave entitlement is 29 days, rising to 31 days after three years’ service and to 33 days after five years’ service, plus all UK public holidays (pro rata for fixed term and part time contracts).
Flexible & agile working – office-based staff are required to work in the LGA’s London office two days per week as a minimum, subject to business need and this may vary significantly between different roles and from week to week.
Future development – face-to-face and virtual courses are scheduled in line with developmental goals
The LGA offers 24/7 access to a free, confidential employee assistance programme managed by Health Assured. This service is also available for Dependants.
Family friendly policies

For more of LGA’s benefits and working with us, please view our webpage https://www.careers.local.gov.uk/about-us

Our values & behaviours

Our Values and Behaviours are there to give us an understanding of who we are as an organisation and who we want to be. They are a framework to help us understand:

how we work with each other
how we work with our members and stakeholders
our expectations for ourselves and each other

Our values are:

Inclusive - We ensure that our work is inclusive of all voices.

Ambitious - We are ambitious for councils and their communities and are committed to striving for excellence in all that we do to support our colleagues, our membership and the sector to deliver the best possible outcomes.

Collaborative - We bring together the expertise and skills needed, working as one team.

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