Public Affairs Officer

Description:

We are professionals with purpose, beating cancer every day. But we need to go much further and much faster. That’s why we’re looking for someone talented, someone who wants to develop their skills, someone like you.

We have an exciting opportunity for you to join us as a Public Affairs Officer. The Westminster & Local Public Affairs team communicate Cancer Research UK’s policy messaging to parliamentarians in Westminster and local government across England to achieve policy change. As a team, we work across the cancer pathway on prevention, diagnosis and treatment as well as on ensuring that the wider environment supports cancer research.

This role will have responsibility for our prevention work, leading a programme of influencing activity to ensure cancer prevention remains on the political agenda. We want the UK Government to deliver on the 10-Year Health Plan’s shift from sickness to prevention, and the National Cancer Plan’s aim to take decisive action on preventable cancers so fewer people get an avoidable cancer diagnosis.

This will include regularly briefing and meeting elected members; monitoring parliamentary activity and sharing intelligence; organising external events and visits at CRUK sites across the UK; working closely with the campaigns and policy teams, and other departments across the organisation; developing stakeholder engagement plans for senior staff; and representing the charity at external meetings and in external coalitions.

What will I be doing?

• Delivering and reporting on a programme of activities aimed at ensuring that Cancer Research UK has a high profile in Westminster, and our policy priorities remain on the parliamentary agenda, including managing a rolling contact programme for MPs
• Leading a programme of influencing activity to help us achieve change for the prevention agenda, and supporting public affairs activities across research and the cancer pathway
• Organising events in parliament, at party conferences, at research sites and at a constituency level as required
• Reacting swiftly and expertly to parliamentary business, briefing as appropriate and understanding how procedures such as parliamentary debates and questions can be instigated and supported for maximum impact
• Proactively seeking opportunities to meet, brief and work with wider networks including Peers, coalitions and sector experts
• Promoting the charity’s wider work, including events such as Race for Life, our research successes and engaging MPs on how cancer impacts their constituency and community.

What skills will I need?

• Demonstrable political interest and judgement, with commitment to neutrality and ability to work across the political spectrum
• Ability to quickly understand, summarise and analyse complex policy and political issues and distil for a range of internal and external audiences
• Excellent written and oral communication skills and ability to adapt style to different audiences
• Strong organisational skills and experience of managing a complex workload, with tight deadlines and often changing priorities
• Good influencing skills and confident managing challenging stakeholder relationships, including in coalition
• Adaptable self-starter with the ability to work remotely and in a self-directed way as part of a larger team.