• Job Description

  Req#: R0000775
  Access & Participation Officer

  Fixed term post (minimum 12 months)

  Bristol

  £ 34,695 - £ 36,470

  Plus generous civil service defined benefit pension

  The Office for Students (OfS) is the independent regulator of higher education in England. We aim to ensure that every student, whatever their background, has a fulfilling experience of higher education that enriches their lives and careers.

  These roles lie in the Regulation Directorate (RD) and we’re looking for skilled, committed people to develop and deliver project and policy work around our regulatory objective, ‘all students from all backgrounds, with the ability and potential to benefit from higher education, should be supported to access, succeed in and progress from higher education’.

  We are looking for people who want to use their skills to help drive forward changes in higher education providers by being able to contribute to the delivery of complex programmes of work and developing policy areas.

  A key part of our work is to regulate Access and Participation Plans (APPs), we also have teams focussing on the skills agenda; equality, diversity and inclusion; funding and school outreach. Once appointed your initial assignment will be within one of these areas, but opportunities exist to develop by working on a variety of projects across RD and the OfS.

  You will have your own designated work areas, taking responsibility for managing your own workload to deliver defined pieces of work whilst supporting more senior colleagues to deliver results. You’ll be involved in internal and external stakeholder management engagement, including liaison with higher education providers, key third sector organisations and colleagues across the OfS.

  About you – person specification

  We are looking for candidates with a variety of relevant skills and experience who want to join us to deliver high quality outcomes to internal and external stakeholders that will ultimately result in a diverse student population. Whether it is supporting high profile strategic OfS projects and programmes or ‘business as usual’ delivery, your planning, attention to detail and key communication skills will be put to the test.

  In your application we would like you to demonstrate your experience and ability in the following areas, focussing on what you’ve done, how you’ve done it and the results you achieved.

  Knowledge and Learning

  • Commitment to developing own knowledge and understanding of relevant work area and how this supports the delivery of wider organisational objectives and use this to contributes to discussions
  • Work with internal and external stakeholders to share intelligence in a particular area of expertise
  • Collate, understand, interpret and use data, information and research from a range of sources. Use this to ensure effective engagement with stakeholders

  Planning

  • Manages key processes and projects independently, often with competing pressures or challenging stakeholders

  • Ability to deliver discrete projects effectively, prioritising own workload and working flexibly to meet competing and changing demands, including implementing appropriate project methodologies (PB7)
  • Supports the delivery of key processes and projects independently, often with competing pressures or challenging stakeholders, proactively managing and organising your own workload
  • Improves and implements processes, supporting change to happen

  Communications

  • Effective communication skills to develop high quality and professional relationships with a range of internal and external stakeholders
  • Demonstrates written and verbal communication that is clear and succinct
  • Ability to synthesize complex information to produce clear, credible advice that reflects and supports Directorate and OfS goals.

  Relationships

  • Able to act as mentor for other colleagues, providing clear guidance on good working practices
  • Working in a team, supporting others to deliver as required
  • Develops and shares expertise and learns from expertise of others

  • Ability to build professional relationships with internal and external stakeholders

  We also have a section on the application form which is ‘Experience’. This is an area where, as well as including relevant experience that you may not have included elsewhere, you have the opportunity to show the recruiting panel why you are applying for the role.

  At interview we will be looking for you to demonstrate:

  • How you develop your knowledge of a new area of work
  • Improving and implement projects and processes, supporting change to happen
  • Evidence of working independently to deliver projects, involving all aspects of project lifecycle, often with competing pressures or challenging stakeholders
  • Using regulatory (or other) levers available to inform development and implementation of work, including judgements, assessments, and recommendation
  • A good understanding of current research, data, legislation, and broad data and information landscape for policy and practice areas relating to our work and/or Higher Education more generally
  • An ability to communicates clearly and fluently to a range of audiences using appropriate evidence, style and language including under a range of circumstances

  Job Description for further information

  Delivery and working in a team

  • Flexible, agile and collaborative working, including working with staff and teams in other directorates

  Policy development

  • Contribution to the development of (potentially complex) policy according to the strategic priorities and directorate context.
  • Contribution to the development and implementation of funding or assessment criteria or new funded programmes
  • Develop ideas and identify risks, working with others

  Delivery of programme and project management and process design

  • Specific work areas delivered within a team utilising appropriate project management skills (or other methodologies to plan and manage activities, budgets and risk
  • Funded projects are monitored to assess their contribution towards business plan goals for the directorate
  • Competing work demands effectively prioritised

  Knowledge and information management

  • Factors, both internal and external that may influence or affect at least one of the functions in the AIS Directorate are understood and, where appropriate, acted upon
  • Analysis and synthesis of complex information is used in the preparation of informal and formal documentation including: reliable and credible advice, briefings, recommendations and other material suitable for informing decision making, influencing stakeholders and policy positioning.
  • Appropriate records are kept and knowledge effectively shared across the organisation

  Stakeholder engagement

  • Stakeholder relevant to their brief are identified and managed to:
    • Inform policy and practice
    • Share intelligence and learning, gather insights and brief stakeholders on OfS and AIS policies, expectations, and work
  • Complex information is clearly and credibly communicated, both in person and through a variety of media appropriate to the audience

  Delivery of appropriate assessments using relevant evidence and judgement

  • Provider practice and performance is appropriately monitored through access and participation plans, assessed and recommendations made.
  • Applications for funding are effectively assessed against the published funding criteria and appropriate recommendations made.
  • Third party organisation bids for commissioned work are robustly assessed against tender criteria and appropriate recommendations made.
  • Risks and opportunities are identified and escalated e.g. identifying burdensome processes.
  • Regulatory levers are understood and used to inform implementation of work, including assessments and recommendations
  • Appropriate judgments about what is effective practice are made in collaboration with others, on the basis of high-quality evidence from a range of sources

  Identify effective practice in relation to access, participation and outcomes

  • Appropriate judgments about what is effective practice are made in collaboration with others, on the basis of high-quality evidence from a range of sources

  Working for us

  
  The OfS regulates the higher education sector on behalf of all students. We value diversity and the wealth of perspectives, experience, and ideas that it brings to our work, and we strive to embed equality of opportunity in everything we do.
  
  We recruit based on fair and open competition and welcome applications from candidates regardless of age, disability, race and ethnicity, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation and socio-economic background. To attract the widest possible field of qualified applicants, flexible working, for example job share and part time working, apply to this role.

  Flexibility is important to the OfS, as we recognise that it can enable people to work more effectively. A set of organisation-wide principles shape our approach to flexible and hybrid working, which our teams then use as guidance on how they deliver their business goals. This would usually mean working from the office for two days in a typical week.

  Closing date for applications: 17 September

  Interviews: after 25 September

• About the company

  The Office for Students is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Education, acting as the regulator and competition authority for the higher education sector in England.

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