Legislation And Accountability Policy Advisor

Are you passionate about policy development and interested in the legislative process?

Would you relish the chance to be involved in decision making for Rail Reform, helping make a difference to millions of rail passengers every single day?

If so, we have a fantastic development opportunity for a Policy Advisor to join our Legislation and Accountability Policy Team, and we would love to hear from you.

The Plan for Rail seeks to reform Britain’s railways to ensure our vital rail system continues to benefit passengers and support a stronger, fairer economy. Reform requires legislation to change the sector structure. Rail legislation is complex and attracts significant interest both inside and outside the rail sector.

You will join the Legislation and Accountability Policy team, which sits at the heart of the Rail Reform Directorate, at a unique juncture as we support the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Draft Rail Reform Bill.

As a multi-disciplined team our work is both varied and exciting and covers a breadth of areas. You will be responsible for supporting on legislative policy work across the governance and accountabilities workstream. This will include a focus on how an integrated rail body would be held to account, particularly by the regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, and Transport Focus, a passenger watchdog.

You will have the opportunity to have regular engagement with colleagues across the Rail reform Directorate, and policy teams across the Department for Transport (DfT), as well as external stakeholders, including responding to the queries of parliamentarians.

This is a fantastic time to join a friendly team and help shape and drive work in a high-profile area, and provides an excellent opportunity to gain experience in stakeholder engagement, policy development, primary legislation, and project delivery.

Responsibilities

You will:

• Support the team in ensuring that holding to account policy is sufficiently developed and delivering the necessary requirements for the pre-legislative scrutiny for the draft Rail Reform Bill.
• Organise engagement with other DfT policy teams and external stakeholders, such as the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) and Transport Focus, to understand policy positions, including scheduling meetings and recording policy positions.
• Lead on maintaining and updating the Team Planner and leading discussions on this during team meetings.
• Coordinate policy advice, including but not limited to, Ministerial briefings, Parliamentary business, freedom of information requests and correspondence.

For further information, please see the attached Role Profile

If you would like to find out more about what it's like to work at DfT Rail, please click here.