We are currently seeking a Researcher to join our Cardiff Bay team, with a focus on health policy. This is a fantastic opportunity for an enthusiastic and hard-working graduate to make a contribution to our future growth in this exciting area of work whilst gaining valuable experience in the world of devolved and UK politics.
About Us
newsdirect wales is a political intelligence company in Wales, reporting from the forefront of all legislative and electoral developments from the National Assembly in Cardiff Bay. We provide tailored monitoring reports to a variety of organisations across Wales to keep them informed and provide public affairs support. We monitor a vast amount of information across news, stakeholder and political sources, alongside our live summaries of Assembly debates and committee sessions. We employ over 20 people across two offices in Edinburgh and Cardiff.
Role Specifics
You’ll be trained initially as a Researcher, where you'll be asked to monitor a regular set of sources for a group of client organisations. This will include daily checks of key online news sources, selecting and summarising items relevant to each client and providing live monitoring of Assembly committees and plenary sessions. Your brief will be to understand exactly what each client needs to know in terms of a public affairs news report - then deliver it consistently every day.
We’ll then train you on the health brief in-depth, where you will become an expert in specific Bills moving through the Assembly, such as the Public Health Bill. You will have the opportunity to develop specific knowledge in one of the most important aspects of devolved legislation. You will be able to draw out the key points from any debate that are of most importance to our clients.
We're looking for someone who's conscientious, capable and flexible. You'll also be an instinctive teamworker, who'll help deal with the ebb and flow of client demands and still produce excellent and accurate work to deadline. Great communication skills, touch typing and a forensic attention to detail (especially in terms of spelling and grammar) are essential attributes for the role.
Experience gained in a monitoring role would be useful, but if you can demonstrate an understanding of Assembly processes and people then we’re happy to train you in what we do.
Duties
- Scanning Welsh Government and National Assembly websites for relevant content for clients;
- Scanning stakeholder websites for relevant updates;
- Producing summaries of National Assembly for Wales proceedings;
- Proofing documents compiled by other newsdirect wales staff;
- Compiling and formatting monitoring reports;
- General research and admin tasks as required by the company director.
Qualifications & Qualities
Essential
- Mature, conscientious attitude;
- Excellent command of written English and fast, accurate word processing skills;
- Working knowledge of the National Assembly for Wales, Welsh Government and related institutions.
Desirable
- Educated to degree level, ideally in humanities, social sciences or journalism;
- Experience in a political monitoring or related environment;
- An understanding of devolution across the UK;
- Experience of delivering high-quality written work in a deadline-driven setting;
- Experience in health policy.
For the successful candidate, this job description will form part of your contractual agreement with newsdirect. However, it is a broad picture of the post at the date of employment and we recognise that posts change and evolve over time.
For further details, please download the document below.