Senior Practice and Policy Lead

About us

New Local has a mission to transform public services and unlock community power. We publish research, lead peer learning, influence government and work with public sector organisations on some of today's most pressing issues, informed by our network of 50-plus local authority members.

All of our work is guided by a belief in community power - the principle that communities themselves have the best insight into their own circumstances and should be able to participate in shaping their places and services. We believe that active, empowered communities should be at the heart of a wider shift towards place-based public services and a system focused on prevention, which can lead to better outcomes and a more sustainable system for all.

Purpose

This role sits within our Practice and Programmes team and will contribute to the development and delivery of New Local's practice and policy work, supporting community-powered public sector reform in partnership with communities, individual councils, strategic authorities, central government, the NHS and other public and voluntary sector bodies.

In our practice work, you will confidently lead and contribute to projects alongside public sector partners and communities, using a range of innovation and practice approaches to address complex challenges and support change. This could include programme and service design, facilitation, strategy development, user-centred design, adaptive and collaborative learning, and approaches that help partners test, learn and adapt in practice. You will work with delivery partners where needed and collaborate closely with other New Local colleagues to deliver high-quality work and impact for our local authority members, wider clients and partners. Crucially, you will help partners not only to develop and test new approaches, but to understand what the learning means for wider strategy, systems and ways of working.

A key part of the role is connecting our practice work to wider strategy, policy and thought leadership. Our thought leadership and policy approach is deeply rooted in the practice we see in places and through our member and peer-learning networks. You will help draw out and communicate learning from pioneering work, developing practical insights and narratives that challenge thinking and inform wider strategy and policy. This could include contributing to blogs and thought pieces, shaping events and member sessions, sharing learning with wider audiences or supporting engagement with key stakeholders. You will identify connections between emerging local practice and national policy agendas and contribute to relationships and opportunities that advance New Local's work on community power and public service reform.

Key tasks and responsibilities

• Contribute to the delivery of New Local practice projects, working closely with senior members of the New Local team and using a range of innovation and practice approaches including design, facilitation, strategy development, user-centred design, adaptive and collaborative learning, and approaches that enable partners to test, learn and adapt.
• Build and maintain excellent relationships with partners across local government, the wider public sector and communities, placing an emphasis on collaborative working, co-design and building the relationships needed to support meaningful change.
• Design and facilitate engaging processes and workshops that help partners explore complex challenges, develop new approaches, test ideas and build shared understanding and action.
• Help connect practice, strategy and policy, drawing out learning from innovation and working with partners to translate this into changes in policy, strategy, systems and services, while contributing to wider thinking about the conditions needed to enable and scale change.
• Ensure effective project management of our activities, working with colleagues and partners to deliver high-quality work and impact within agreed budgets and timelines.
• Support the development and growth of our practice work, including contributing to proposals, project scoping and budgets, and identifying opportunities to develop our work with existing and new partners.
• Communicate the process, findings and learning from our work, producing clear and compelling outputs for different audiences and helping to draw out wider insights that can inform strategy, practice and policy.
• Contribute to New Local's thought leadership and policy work, identifying connections between emerging local practice and wider policy agendas, and contributing to blogs, thought pieces, events, member sessions and stakeholder engagement.
• Work collaboratively across New Local, including with our network and communications teams, using your practice expertise and learning from projects to strengthen the wider impact of our work on community power and public service reform.

How to apply

For the full job description, person specification and details on how to apply, please visit New Local's website.