Principal Policy and Projects Officer – Insight, Learning, and Impact

Salary: £49,930
Contract Type: Permanent
Apply by: 10:00am on Sunday 5th November 2023
Interviews to be held: w/c 13th November 2023
Alternative flexible working options available and open to discussion

To view the full role profile, click here

At Camden, we value and celebrate difference and encourage diversity in all respects. Our diverse workforce ensures we represent our communities to the best of our ability and enables us to make better decisions. Because of this, we want our recruitment process to be as inclusive and as accessible as possible and we recognise that requires us to be as flexible as we can whilst also preserving the integrity of a fair and transparent process.

Similarly, we appreciate that people’s individual skills and experience may not neatly map to a particular role profile and encourage applications from other professions.

So if you have questions about the role, Camden as a whole, or would like to discuss alternative ways to showcase your interest and expertise, then please get in touch with James Coumbe at James.Coumbe@camden.gov.uk or Michal Shinwell at Michal.Shinwell@camden.gov.uk. 

About Camden

Camden is building somewhere everyone can thrive by making our borough the best place to live, work, study, and visit. We’re not just home to the UK's fastest-growing economy — we’re focused on creating a borough in which everyone can live a good life and nobody gets left behind.

We have a clear vision - to organise the right people and skills around challenges (like our missions) to deliver the best outcomes for Camden residents and renewal after the pandemic. 

Camden has a proud, rebellious spirit that throughout its history has seen communities come together to tackle problems and bring about real social change. We’re willing to be bold and try new things in the process.

But don’t just take our word for it - you can read about some of the different people working in the Council. 

About the Principal Policy and Projects Officer role:

As a Principal Policy and Projects Officer, you will lead projects and be part of a team that are at the cutting edge of design thinking in Camden, developing policy and projects with residents that lead to change on the ground.

We’re looking for curious, analytical and creative people who want to develop leadership skills and bring together different disciplines to work towards a shared goal. Curious to understand what’s really at the heart of a problem, and about other people’s experiences and perspectives. Humble in recognising what they don’t know and expert at working with others with different knowledge and expertise. And flexible to change their approach as they learn more, to test things out and adapt what doesn’t work.

You will work in the Insight, Learning, and Impact team, which works to bring together data and research to extract insights that will help us to improve lives of people in the borough. We champion high quality, innovative and inclusive ways of using data from different sources to solve problems, promote inclusive and equitable approaches, and create a culture of continuous improvement. We want to make sure that we achieve outcomes that meet the needs and expectations of both our residents and staff in a sustainable way.

To view the full role profile, click here

The application process:

1. Optional: Book a chat - to get a better sense of whether this role would be right for you, and to find out more about the work we do, we hope you’ll take us up on the offer to get in touch with James Coumbe at James.Coumbe@camden.gov.uk or Michal Shinwell at Michal.Shinwell@camden.gov.uk. 
2. Complete a short application via the “Apply” link at the bottom of this page and make sure to respond to the four questions below - we anonymise all applications to reduce bias in the hiring process by placing greater emphasis on candidates’ relevant skills and experience.

We want to give everyone the same chance to showcase their relevant skills and experience so we ask you to follow a set formula and answer in the section ‘ application questions’. It should clearly answer these three prompts, in order:

1. Tell us about a time where you have led work (or parts of a process) which used evidence and insight to design and develop a policy or strategy.  
2. In this role, you will be working with teams from a big, political organisation to make change happen on complex policy areas and issues. What do you expect some of the main challenges to be, and how will you draw on your experience to manage these?  
3. What do you think are the main trends in the world of insight, evidence and data that will have an impact on local government in coming years?
4. Considering the job description and the available information, what approach would you take to setting, and then achieving, personal development goals within this role?

Please ignore the ‘why me’ statement field. 

1. 1-hour interview with 3 Camden staff - we’ll send you the 4-5 questions and short presentation task in advance, and ensure that there’s plenty of time at the interview for you to ask any questions you have at this stage in the process.
2. Offer and feedback - if you’re successful at the interview stage, we’ll contact you with the details of your job offer, along with some feedback on your performance throughout the process.
3. Onboarding - once your offer is accepted and the start date agreed, we’ll make sure there’s a plan in place for your first few weeks to make sure you have the information and support needed to ease into your career at Camden.

We know that applying for roles is a time-consuming process and we want to make sure that we respect and appreciate the time and energy you put into applying for this role at the Council. Therefore, no matter what stage of the process you get to and no matter whether your application is successful or not, we will always take the time to provide you with specific, personal feedback on your performance in the application process.