Senior Policy Officer - Child Safety Online

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 develops and holds the NSPCC’s positions on key public policy issues and harnesses these to influence policy makers and external stakeholders across the UK. The PAPA team’s strategic focus is divided into five ‘workstreams’: child protection and children’s social care; early years; child sexual abuse; online safety; supporting young victims and witnesses.

We are now seeking a Senior Policy and Public Affairs Officer to play a leading role in the online safety workstream to ensure legislative and policy frameworks in England and the UK are fit for purpose in preventing online abuse and harm to children.

You will join the team at a crucial moment for children in the UK and help us make the case for strong and ambitious regulation and legislation to ensure every child is safe online.

The Senior Policy and Public Affairs Officer will lead the development of new policy positions and delivery of public affairs strategies to achieve regulatory, policy and legal change which tackles abuse and harm to children online. This will involve evidence-based policy development, being responsible for thematic policy areas, and playing a key role in forming and delivering public affairs and influencing strategies.

You’ll be able to demonstrate that you can hit the ground running and deliver high impact policy outputs and public affairs initiatives to ensure the NSPCC delivers real change in the best interests of children and continues to be seen as a credible and authoritative voice on online harms.

As an effective communicator you’ll have excellent written and oral advocacy skills, with a proven record of building in-depth knowledge of complex subject matter and developing a wide range of relationships to successfully influence policy decision making. Most of all, you will be passionate about preventing abuse and have a good understanding of challenges facing children and families in England.

Job purpose

The Senior Policy and Public Affairs Officer will be responsible for undertaking public affairs and policy work to achieve the NSPCC’s strategic goals, using their skills and experience to strengthen the NSPCC’s impact on public policy, and in doing so make a significant contribution to keeping children safe online.

Key relationships - Internal

·      Reports to Policy and Regulatory Manager

·      Colleagues in the Policy and Public Affairs team

·      Colleagues in the Strategy and Knowledge directorate

·      Colleagues in the Media and Campaigns teams

·      Colleagues in the Child Safety Online Solutions team, including working with the Online Safety Youth Taskforce

 

 

Key relationships - External

·      MPs, Peers, and their advisors

·      Parliamentary audiences, e.g., Select Committees, clerks, and APPGs

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

·      Regulators (particularly Ofcom)

·      Technology companies, including social media and gaming companies

·      Other charities and organisations focused on children's safety online

Main duties and responsibilities

·      Develop and implement high impact public affairs and parliamentary strategies to support the delivery of our objectives to keep children safe online.

·      Scope and deliver high quality, evidence-based policy outputs including briefings, position statements, and responses to consultations, developing innovative solutions to complex problems.

·      Maintain a network of key contacts across parliament, the civil service, industry and civil society, using this network to amplify the NSPCC’s voice and maximise impact.

·      Develop and maintain a high level of expertise on key policy areas, with lead responsibility for specified thematic areas.

·      Analyse a wide range of primary and secondary sources of evidence (such as policy documents, academic literature and survey data) to develop innovative and evidence-based policy solutions to complex problems.

·      Proactively identify threats and opportunities to our work programme, enabling the NSPCC to predict and react to changes in the external environment.

·      Lead the delivery of NSPCC public affairs events, such as parliamentary receptions and roundtables (working with colleagues from across the organisation).

·      Prepare high-quality briefings, summaries, and papers for internal and external audiences.

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

·      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 broadcasts and interviews as well as background discussions with journalists on issues relating to policy expertise.

 

 

 

•           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, 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

 

1.          Strong public affairs and influencing skills, including excellent knowledge of parliamentary processes, sound political judgement, and proven ability to influence and build support amongst a variety of stakeholders – including Parliamentarians, civil servants, and regulators.

 

2.          Excellent policy development skills, with demonstrable experience forming credible, evidence-based positions and producing policy outputs on complex and highly nuanced subject matter.

 

3.          Excellent communication skills including the ability to write clearly, concisely, and persuasively in a variety of formats for a range of audiences and very good oral presentation skills.

 

4.          Strong analytical skills with proven ability to collate data from various sources, analyse findings and present them clearly and accurately to make a clear and compelling case for policy and legislative change.

 

5.          Strong interpersonal skills to build and influence external networks and deal effectively and persuasively with internal and external stakeholders.

 

6.          Confidence in working as part of a team, with experience of working collaboratively with colleagues to help ensure the successful delivery of projects.

 

7.          Ability to work on own initiative with strong organisational and project management skills and demonstrable experience of delivering on competing priorities within a time-pressured environment. 

 

8.          Knowledge of online safety policy or issues affecting vulnerable groups is desirable.

 

 

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.