Ofwat is the economic regulator of the water and wastewater sectors in England and Wales. Our role is to help it build trust and confidence with customers, the environment and wider society. Our strategic priorities include:
- Delivering the reforms provided for in the Water Act 2014 and help to ensure that they deliver real benefits for water customers and society. This includes putting in place the arrangements for the opening of the non-household retail market to competition in April 2017. This also includes supporting the development of water trading and abstraction reform. Doing these things will require further changes to the way we set prices in our 2019 review.
- Maintaining the confidence of investors in the water and wastewater sector and our regulation of it, though this period of change.
- Developing the means by which we monitor the sector‘s performance against our vision of trust and confidence, and receive assurance from the sector.
Crucial to achieving these strategic priorities is effective communications.
Purpose
This role will require the successful candidate to:
- Play a key role in ensuring Ofwat handles the media effectively, including running Ofwat’s press office on a day-to-day basis;
- Play a lead role on advising senior figures on media handling;
- Work with the corporate communications resource pool to support, advise and implement effective strategic communications across Ofwat. This could include using a range of communciations channels beyond media relations, such as social media, events and stakeholder relations.
Key responsibilities
- Develop and support Ofwat’s media work in order to deliver our corporate strategy;
- Devise and deliver effective media relations campaigns. This will include building relationships with journalists, writing and issuing press notices, selling-in stories, and taking an active role in promoting Ofwat’s work and strategy through the press;
- Take the lead in running our press office, dealing with enquiries from the media, and providing media handling advice to colleagues across the organisation;
- Provide briefings and advice to senior management on risks and opportunities, as well as messaging for interviews;
- Assist in briefing stakeholders and offering stakeholder handling advice to colleagues across the organisation;
- Write articles on Ofwat’s work for different audiences so that Ofwat’s role and aims are more widely understood;
- Engage with colleagues to understand often complex, technical policy and turn this into accessible, compelling key messages;
- Represent Ofwat at events and external meetings, with excellent and confident oral communication skills;
- Work with programme teams and other members of the corporate communications resource pool to develop and implement communications strategies, which could include using a range of communications channels, such as stakeholder relations, events, publications and digital media;
- Provider wider support to the corporate communications resource pool, as required.
Professional requirements
We would like somebody with a degree level qualification or equivalent experience. This role will require somebody with strong experience working in a media handling role, ideally with a wider exposure to other communications channels such as social media or events.