Participation Programmes Officer

Summary

We are the public body that looks after England’s historic environment. We champion historic places, helping people understand, value and care for them.

Historic England have a fantastic opportunity for you to join us as our Participation Programmes Officer, where you will assist and deliver on the work of the Participation Programmes Team.

This role will help to embed the Active Participation strand of Historic England’s future strategy across the organisation.  Working directly with grant recipients, suppliers and internal teams to deliver a programme of activity that helps people connect to - and act for - the historic environment contributing to their overall wellbeing, and social impact, supporting our commitment to inclusion and diversity.  The role will also build skills and capacity within the organisation to embed participation in our processes.

Location

Hybrid with flexibility of office location, travel to London and other locations in England will be required on an ad hoc basis.

What you will be doing

As an integral part of the Participation Programmes team, help to deliver an annual programme of cultural and participatory public engagement activity.  The activity will reach, and be shaped by, our target audiences and support broader priorities such as inclusion and diversity, wellbeing and volunteering activity.

Work with the Participation Programmes Manager to deliver flagship participatory projects, events and experiences. You will be working with colleagues across the organisation to ensure the programmes are insight led, well designed and managed, reach our target audiences and are evaluated to continuously improve and develop our participatory programme.

Working with Participation Programmes Manager and the Historic England Grants Team to sift applications and then monitor and project assure grant funded projects.

Working with the Cultural Programme Curator, act as a point of contact for suppliers and grant recipients to successfully deliver cultural programming activity. This will include liaising with creative partners to produce exhibitions, meeting with cultural organisations that have been grant funded to work with communities using creative techniques, and taking part in commissioning artists to create work to go into the Historic England Archive.

Act as a liaison point between other teams across Public Engagement Group, in particular the Portfolio, Marketing and Content and Communications teams, so participatory programmes are supported by the rest of the Group

Work with Participation Programme Manager to create guidance and documentation to assist grants programmes. Facilitate and manage information sharing and communications with grants programme cohorts

Act as the main point of contact for the team’s finance processes, including ensuring suppliers are paid on time.

Advocate for and assist the teams you work with across the organisation to build their capacity and skills to ensure successful participatory projects have a legacy and can be embedded into long term processes. This legacy reflects our Future Strategy of Active Participation, Connected Communities and Thriving Places.

Liaise with partners to assist the successful delivery of the programmes and their objectives, often acting as a main point of contact. Assist the identification of suitable partnerships through research.

Develop briefs for externally funded participation projects, inviting input from others and working closely with colleagues in our Procurement and Grants teams to ensure public money is spent responsibly.

On occasion oversee and be responsible for the direct delivery of discrete projects within broader programmes.

Monitor any specific inboxes linked to particular programmes. Assist in the administration and running of any advisory panels that support participation and cultural programmes.

Act as a source of knowledge and insight for up to date inclusive participatory practice.

Sometimes represent Historic England’s work in participatory activity to external audiences.

Who we are looking for

• Highly organised with experience of programme project management skills
• Experience of commissioning others, including artists and creatives, to deliver work
• Experience of supporting teams to deliver projects
• Experience of producing community-led participatory programmes

We are an equal opportunity employer which values diversity and inclusion. If you have a disability or neurodiversity, we would be happy to discuss reasonable adjustments to the job with you. Having just won the Gold Award from MIND, we also recognise the importance of a healthy work-life balance.

We are an inclusive employer and believe that flexible working options are for everyone. We want to make sure our working arrangements don’t prevent anyone from joining us because of their personal circumstances. We also want to provide you with the best balance in your home and work life that we can.

We are open to considering options including job sharing, part-time working, compressed hours working and different working locations, including hybrid working. Please visit our jobs pages or contact us to find out more.

Why work for Historic England

We offer a wide benefits package including a competitive pension scheme starting at 28% contributions, a generous 28 days holiday, corporate discounts, free entry into English Heritage sites across the country and development opportunities to ensure you achieve your goals.

We are committed to promoting equality of opportunity for everyone. Diversity helps us to perform better and attract more people to support our work. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds.

We particularly encourage applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates and candidates with disabilities as they are underrepresented within Historic England at this level.

Historic England want all of our candidates to shine in the recruitment process. Please tell us what we can do to make sure you can show us your very best self. You can contact us by email at recruitmentTeam@Historicengland.org.uk if you have any recruitment queries. 

To ensure a fair and inclusive recruitment process for everyone the use of AI or automated tools is not permitted.

Interview dates: 10th June 2024 - MS Teams

Please follow the link for a full copy of the Job Description –

https://historicengland.org.uk/media/3nqnf0zw/participation-programmes-officer.odt