Policy and Review Officer

£34,292 - £51,127 Permanent Full Time Wandsworth/Richmond

Are you looking to make a difference in 2025? Ambitious to support innovation and change for two high-performing Councils, serving 500,000 residents across South-West London? Do you want to work for Councils unafraid to work at scale, delivering one of the most substantial Cost of Living responses in London, large-scale regeneration projects, ambitious climate change action, and delivering London Borough of Culture 2025? Are you passionate about reducing inequality, and creating equity and fairness? Do you want the opportunity to work closely with lead members, helping them to turn their priorities into high-profile, innovative projects which make a difference for our residents?

Our team has expanded, with new posts created, focusing on Wandsworth - reflecting the scale of ambition within the Council. This is a great opportunity to join us help shape and develop key policy areas.

Over the past year, the Policy team has played a key part in delivering the expansion of the Wandsworth’s administration’s top priorities including the expansion of the flagship Access for All programme, the launch of the Council’s new logo and core pledges, updating our policy towards Heathrow, and the development of the £3 million Cleaner Borough Plan.

We are responsible for driving innovation, identifying examples of emerging practice from elsewhere and developing opportunities to pilot them locally. This post would suit someone with strong analytical skills, a sense of curiosity about how things work and how they can be improved. We are looking for someone able to think creatively and who is excited to try new ways of working.

As Policy and Review Officer, you will be a generalist, working on a range of projects and with services across the Council to develop strategies and services which deliver on the Councils’ goals. No two days in the role will be the same, therefore you will need to be adaptable, and able to quickly learn about new subject areas.

You will need to build good working relationships with colleagues, and work collaboratively to help deliver priority projects. You will be required to:

• Present and engage with a range of audiences, including lead members, senior officers, and residents. You should be able to adapt your communication style and to communicate in a range of formats.
• Produce high quality reports for and on behalf of senior officers and elected members, and should be comfortable drawing on a variety of sources of information including interpreting data to inform these.
• Deliver a key element to support services to reduce inequality in the boroughs, and holding them to account. We are looking for a person with an appreciation of the importance of delivering equality.
• Provide advice to services on how to complete robust Equality Impact Needs Assessments and help to provide constructive challenge to ensure that services are taking every opportunity to reduce inequality locally.

You will play your part in the wider Policy and Review team by sharing responsibility for business as usual tasks including producing regular briefings, collating corporate plan updates, and reviewing Equality Impact Needs Assessments. We work on high profile projects and routinely work with elected members. You therefore should have an understanding of working in a political environment.

Currently, we work as a team from the office for two days a week, across two locations (Wandsworth Town Hall and Richmond Civic Centre).

Indicative timetable:

• Closing Date: 22 June 2025.
• Shortlisting Date: 23 June 2025.
• Test: 27th June 2025.
• Test & Interviews: w/c 7th July.

We may close this vacancy early once a sufficient number of applications has been received. Please submit your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

Richmond & Wandsworth Better Service Partnership are committed to making our recruitment practices as inclusive as possible for everyone. We are committed to promoting equality and diversity and developing a culture that values differences, recognising that employees from a variety of backgrounds bring important and positive contributions to the Councils and can improve the way we deliver services. We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer. Please note this campaign is anonymised.

If you require any reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment and selection process, please let us know. We are also committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people/vulnerable adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Some posts may be exempted under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and as such appointment to these posts will be conditional upon the receipt of a satisfactory response to a check of police records via Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

We offer a wide range of benefits designed to attract, develop, and reward our employees such as 40 days annual leave (including Bank Holidays), flexible working and a generous pension plan.