XML Publishing Manager

House of Commons

The House of Commons a unique and exciting place to work right at the heart of the UK's thriving democratic system. 

Behind the scenes, the House of Commons Service is made up of more than 3,000 employees who support and facilitate the smooth day to day running of the House. They provide professional services to Members of Parliament, their staff, and the wider parliamentary community.

Staff Benefits

In addition to your salary, we offer an attractive range of benefits including:

• 30 days' annual leave (increasing to 35 days after first full leave year).
• Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%.
• Access to training and development.
• Flexible working.
• Interest free season ticket loan and bicycle loan.

Introduction

The Chamber and Participation Team provides the core services that facilitate MPs' legislative and scrutiny work in the House of Commons Chamber, Westminster Hall, general committees and some related select committees, and engages the public with parliamentary business.

The Procedural Publishing Unit provides publishing services for teams right across parliament but with a focus on supporting the Commons Chamber.

The Role

This role is part of a team providing high-quality publishing services to parliament (especially the House of Commons chamber). This specialist role provides publishing expertise within the team, supporting colleagues who use workflows involving HTML, CSS, XML / XSLT, Python, and publishing products from Adobe etc. The post holder will propose new projects and work on existing projects aimed at further automating and improving the quality and efficiency of publishing workflows. You will advise on the technology and design of long form documents. You will research and advise on best practice, propose changes and embed your contributions by producing demonstrations and training your colleagues.

The post holder is not expected to have line managerial responsibilities.

Some of the responsibilities for this role include:

• With others in the team, develop the vision for procedural publishing, and ensure the wider team has the skills and understanding to deliver it
• Develop and maintain publishing workflows using XML / XSLT, HTML, Adobe InDesign and Oxygen to ensure no-fail publishing of business-critical content, including proposing changes to technology or business processes where appropriate
• Build and foster a highly effective collaborative approach across publishing, printing and technical teams in the House of Commons
• Provide advice and input to cross-disciplinary project teams delivering publishing projects, and advise colleagues at all levels of the organisation on content publishing workflows

Skills and Experience

To be successful in this role you will demonstrate:

• Track record of manipulating structured data (XML or JSON) to produce high quality, well designed long form text documents and other publications for print and digital. The ability to write scripts to retrieve such data from web APIs to enable colleagues to produce outputs in an automated way.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, with the ability to interact and communicate effectively with people at all levels. Ability to work both autonomously and within a team, whilst upholding the values of equality, diversity and inclusion.
• Some experience with using document preparation systems such as Adobe InDesign, Oxygen or LaTex, as well as technologies such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript with a focus on using these to produce PDFs and webpages that meet WCAG 2.0 accessibility standards.
• Experience of successfully supporting more junior colleagues to develop skills in publishing technology and effectively delegating and organising work to ensure deadlines are met.
• Experience of persuading colleagues (both technical and non-technical specialists) to adopt new procedures in relation to publishing workflows with tact and diplomacy.
• (Desirable) Knowledge of the range of business publications of the House of Commons, and Commons and Lords Hansard, including content origination processes, purposes and layout of papers.

Next Steps and Additional Information

• CV & Supporting Statement - If you would like to apply for this role, please submit your CV and covering letter with a 500 word limit.

More information on the role and the full criteria can be found in the Job Description.

Please note that most job offers will be made at the minimum of the salary range, other than in exceptional circumstances.

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