Our Parliamentary and Public Affairs Officer works to establish a strong political and policy profile for BACP, through engagement with parliamentary stakeholders and with parliamentary and policy developments that impact on the organisation, profession or the wider mental health and wellbeing agenda. Co-ordinate and action key areas of the Department’s parliamentary and public affairs activity to ensure BACP is well positioned to deliver positive public policy change for the counselling and psychotherapy professions.
Principal accountabilities:
1. Informed through the development of a parliamentary strategy, facilitate ongoing parliamentary engagement in Westminster and Whitehall. Identifying political stakeholders relevant to BACP, co-ordinating and developing our communications enabling the organisation to respond intelligently and timely to those with most influence and to enable the measurement of impact.
2. Monitor, analyse and brief on parliamentary and legislative procedures and the political developments within Westminster and Whitehall; pro-actively identifying areas of interest or relevance to BACP and making recommendations for communication and engagement opportunities to allow the organisation to be able to contribute to and influence parliamentary developments.
3. Analyse and interpret new policy, guidance and legislation produced by the UK Government and other bodies, summarising the key impacts on BACP, its membership and wider profession and pro-actively recommending actions to enable the organisation to be able to be contribute to and influence policy developments.
4. Lead on the co-ordination and preparation of responses to stakeholder consultations and parliamentary committee inquiries ensuring the organisation contributes effectively and able to measure the impact of these responses and maintaining a tracker and record of responses.
5. Prepare and disseminate evidence-informed material for parliamentarians and decision-makers allowing the organisation to be able to respond to a range of policy issues impacting BACP, its membership and the profession and maintain a database of these contacts.
6. Support the delivery of BACP’s policy and public affairs campaigns and events, including creation of influential material and messaging and use and manage online campaigning tools to enable members to support BACP’s campaign work and to promote the value and impact of their own services to local and national representatives.
7. Represent the organisation externally at meetings, conferences and events ensuring BACP’s visibility to external stakeholders and produce information for others attending meetings ensuring the organisation in a position to respond to parliamentary, political and policy developments.
8. When required, support the Policy and Engagement Lead – Four Nations, with parliamentary and public activity across the Devolved Parliaments.
This role can be performed remotely from within the UK, the successful candidate will need to attend the office periodically for team meetings, and regular off-site events.