About the role
***INTERNAL APPLICANTS ONLY***
The role of Consultation and Engagement Specialist is situated within our Enabling Services Consultation and Engagement Team.
You will play a pivotal role in delivering the council’s public and stakeholder consultation and engagement and help to ensure the decisions the council takes:
- are informed by public opinion;
- reflect and respond to the needs of local people; and
- are transparent and accountable.
Working closely with our Consultation and Engagement Lead you’ll be an integral part of a small and busy team, with your work touching upon all aspects of consultation and engagement across the council.
You will manage and deliver a comprehensive and effective programme of consultation and engagement activities with residents, partners, community organisations and other stakeholders, to help inform the shaping of our services, strategies and policies. You will provide colleagues with specialist advice on consultation and engagement methods to maintain, develop and enhance engagement best practice and ensure legal compliance.
You will have extensive experience in consultation and engagement, with a proven track record in delivering meaningful involvement activities with diverse audiences, including the seldom heard, which has been used to help shape service improvement and delivery. You will have excellent data analysis and report writing skills with the ability to present often complex information to various audiences. Your creativity, pragmatism, and flexibility will enable you to handle challenges and priorities effectively.
You will be a conduit for consultation and engagement activities and provide robust specialist and technical advice, including legal guidance. You will provide oversight and support to colleagues and other stakeholders on how to conduct meaningful consultation and engagement activities and campaigns within defined budgets and timeframes, whilst ensuring legal robustness and corporate requirements are met and mitigating the risk of challenge.
North Northamptonshire Council only came into being in April 2021, and this is an opportunity to help shape the future of one of the largest unitary authorities in the country. Join us and be part of a dynamic team d
What will you be doing?
As our Consultation and Engagement Specialist, you will deliver and support consultation and engagement activities, operating across services with minimal supervision and management, by designing, coordinating/managing, collating, analysing, and delivering a portfolio of consultation and engagement that will provide evidence to support the development of services, strategic objectives and strategic documentation. This includes mechanisms of participation, forums, feedback sessions, questionnaires, and analysis reporting of these to help shape service improvement and delivery across the council, whilst ensuring compliance with GDPR, equality, and accessibility standards.
You will challenge existing established and proposed approaches to consultation and engagement and, working with the Consultation and Engagement Lead and service directors, managers and Members, produce creative and cost-effective strategies, ideas and actions for enhanced participation.
You will assist in developing, maintaining and enhancing effective and productive relationships or links with other local authorities, academic institutions and other partner stakeholders as necessary to provide an effective and robust consultation and engagement service.
You will work to improve service availability, accessibility, customer led provision, co-production and inclusive practice and equity for all, including seldom heard groups and those with protected characteristics, via a range of different effective media and tools. You will help shape the service improvement of the team to ensure the council is at the forefront of delivering inclusive and effective consultation and engagement.
This role offers a unique opportunity to help shape the future of North Northamptonshire Council.
About you
You will be an experienced consultation and engagement specialist that can demonstrate effective delivery of meaningful and innovative participation activities within large, complex organisations. With a proven track record of effectively delivering robust consultation and engagement campaigns, making use of the latest participation techniques, practices, and tools to facilitate involvement from diverse audiences including the general public, local communities, seldom heard groups and organisations.
You must have clear evidence of building and maintaining strong relationships with key stakeholders and senior managers, ensuring beneficial outcomes. A successful history in delivering consultation and engagement campaigns and projects on time and within budget is essential.
In addition to your technical skills, you will need excellent interpersonal abilities to communicate effectively with clients at all levels across the organisation, the public, and external partners. You should be capable of working independently, managing your own workload, planning ahead, and maintaining accuracy under pressure and within tight deadlines.
Our benefits
Here at North Northamptonshire Council, we’re transforming for the better, using all our creativity and imagination to create the best life for our local people.
You’ll find that we have a wide range of careers that may be more surprising than you think!
Why choose us?
We offer a vibrant working environment with:
- a competitive salary
- a pension scheme, where we pay a significant contribution on top of your contribution. It provides life cover and ill-health protection.
- lots of opportunities to develop your skills, knowledge and potential in a large unitary council
- generous leave entitlement (28 days, rising to 33 days) and bank holidays, plus the option to buy up to an extra 10 days
- hybrid and flexible working arrangements, where practicable for service needs to help you with a healthy work-life balance.
We provide a range of great benefits such as an Employee Assistance Programme, an Employee Benefits Scheme, wellbeing support, travel rates at HMRC rates, as well as supporting a range of active Employee Network Groups.
About us
Our Values and Behaviours
Our values define who we are and how we operate, by forming the foundation for how we interact with our customers, colleagues and provide our services. They are also at the forefront of our decision making and delivery and are:
Customer-focused
Respectful
Efficient
Supportive
Trustworthy
Our Key Commitments
Our key commitments help ensure that the priorities we make, now and in the future, maintain the necessary breadth of focus in those areas that we believe matter most.
We are proud to be a recognised Disability Confident Employer and is committed to providing an inclusive recruitment process and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role.
North Northamptonshire Council re-signed the Armed Forces Covenant in June 2024 which highlights the Council’s pledge to support the Armed Forces community. The council obtained the silver status award for the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS) and we are now currently working towards achieving Gold status.
We aim to be a carbon neutral Council by 2030.
Further information can be found at Jobs and careers | North Northamptonshire Council (northnorthants.gov.uk)
