Political Analysts

The Electoral Commission have an exciting opportunity for a Political Analyststo join their team in London.

Location: London, Cardiff, Belfast or Edinburgh

Salary: £29,911 per annum

Contract Type: 1 x Permanent/Full-Time & 2 x One-Year Fixed Term Contracts/Full-Time

About Us:

The Electoral Commission is the independent body which oversees elections and regulates political finance in the UK. We work to promote public confidence in the democratic process and ensure its integrity.

We are responsible for ensuring that political parties and campaigners in the UK comply with the laws in place to ensure transparency and free and fair elections.

Political Analysts- The Role:

We are recruiting for three Political Analysts to join our Regulatory Action team during an exciting and busy election year. This small team has a number of differing but equally important roles supporting and enhancing the work of other teams in the Regulation directorate.

The team is responsible for…

- Monitoring campaigning and other activity by political parties and campaigners where it relates to the political finance regime.

- Contributing our digital transformation.

- Ensuring that our internal processes are effective so that our regulatory work is consistent and of high quality.

- Our liaison work with the police with any overlapping work.

The Political Analyst roles are focused on the first two of those responsibilities. The workload is varied and becomes intense during major electoral events. It can involve dealing with politically sensitive matters.

Political Analysts- Key Responsibilities:

- Assisting the Senior Political Analyst with the collection, examination and dissemination of regulatory intelligence relating to the activities of regulated entities, including through online and social media platforms, to underpin the Directorate’s ongoing regulatory assurance work.

- Contributing to the development of the Regulation Directorate’s understanding of campaign techniques through the use of emerging technologies, machine learning and data skills to deliver a proactive regulatory intelligence function and driving the Commission’s digital transformation.

- Keeping abreast of all major campaign activities and identifying intelligence relevant to regulated entities’ compliance with campaign spending rules and on matters of regulatory interest, putting together compliance profiles and summary reports for Commission staff.

- Working together with the other Political Analysts monitoring press, online and broadcast sources, according to agreed timescales, in order to prepare and send timely, accurate, and high-quality Regulatory Intelligence Bulletins to Commission staff.

- Updating and maintaining the Commission’s monitoring and regulatory intelligence archives.

- Creating bespoke spreadsheets of financial data and liaise with external stakeholders, including members of local authority electoral services, to ensure the delivery of candidate spending returns following electoral events and analysing and processing financial disclosure data submitted after electoral events from candidate spending returns and preparing this for publication.

Political Analysts- You:

We are looking for committed individuals interested in elections and the link between UK politics and technology. You will have a strong detailed-oriented approach and excellent communication skills to contribute to the collection of regulatory intelligence and the monitoring of regulated entities’ campaign activities and their compliance with PPERA in the run-up to UK elections.

You do not need experience in the political finance regime, but you will have the ability to learn quickly and excellent organisational skills, with a proven track record of delivering results against challenging timeframes and competing demands.
Political Analysts- Benefits:

- Benenden Health Care services (health care provision for all staff from day 1 of employment. Services include 24-hour GP access, support services and more)

- Civil Service Pension Scheme

- Interest-free season ticket loan (after 2 months service)

- Generous holiday entitlement of 27.5 days (full time employee) plus public holidays, rising with length of service to 30 days

- Enhanced Family Friendly provisions (for maternity, paternity, shared parental leave, and adoption)

- Flexible, hybrid working (2 days per week in one of our offices)

- Cycle to Work Scheme (salary sacrifice scheme)

- Reward voucher schemes (via nomination)

We would like to continuously increase the diversity of our employees. Applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates are particularly welcomed.

The closing date for applications is Wednesday 21st February 2024 at 11:59pm. However, we reserve the right to close the application earlier, depending on number of applications.

Interviews are expected to take place the week commencing Monday 4th March 2024. We may use video conferencing tools for the interviews. We will confirm details with shortlisted candidates.

To submit your application for this exciting Political Analysts opportunity, please click 'Apply’ now.