Purpose of job:
The Policy and Campaigns Assistant will support the Policy and Communications team on a number of key projects and help to represent HBF in communications with its members and stakeholders, including Government.
Context and environment:
The Home Builders Federation (HBF) is the representative body of the home building industry in England and Wales. The HBF’s member firms account for around 80% of new homes built in England and Wales, and include companies of all sizes, ranging national, household names through regionally based businesses to small local companies.
The HBF represents and serves its members in a range of ways including:
- Ensuring senior politicians and government officials are aware of housing issues and the challenges faced by our members;
- Working with stakeholders and policymakers to ensure housing policies are introduced that facilitate housing supply, in a way that is workable for the industry;
- Representing members’ interests in discussions with key decision makers in government and during formal consultation processes, both nationally and regionally, on the issues that affect our members including: technical, planning, economic and environmental matters;
- In the national, regional and trade press. We maintain strong relationships with the print and broadcast media to ensure that the homebuilding industry is robustly represented. We regularly provide expert analysts for all the high-profile news and current affairs programmes on radio and television and contribute articles to a range of publications;
- Ensuring our members are fully briefed on industry developments that will affect their businesses via working groups, regular communications and specific briefing notes.
The Policy and Campaigns Assistant is an exciting new role within the Policy Team reporting directly to the Head of Policy and External Affairs, Emma Ramell.
HBF is a small, professional team where all functions work closely together, thus enabling individuals to immerse themselves in a breadth of activities, making a real contribution and ensuring their personal development.
Accountabilities, responsibilities and main duties:
- Keep abreast of policy, legislative and media developments of relevance to HBF and its members;
- Monitor Parliamentary activity and proactively identifying opportunities for HBF to engage with policymakers, Parliamentarians and journalists;
- Support HBF’s work in advance of the general election to ensure MPs and candidates are aware of the impact of the housing crisis and the challenges facing home builders;
- Use existing and original data sources to present concise and compelling information to influence stakeholders and provide information to HBF members;
- Produce briefings for a variety of audiences, including MPs;
- Ensure relevant policy and legislative updates are included in our Weekly News Summary for members;
- Lead on the production of our regular newsletter which updates members on the work of HBF;
- Assist in the development of our policy and communications strategy to engage HBF’s key stakeholders in the issues facing the home building industry;
- Keep the stakeholder map and contact programme up to date;
- Assist with the organisation of events including breakfast briefings, party conference fringes and member events;
- Suggest tactics for effective engagement to raise awareness of the issues facing the home building industry;
- Support the policy team with the running of public affairs campaigns;
- Prepare detailed biographies of key stakeholders for colleagues in advance of meetings;
- Source the latest data and statistics for use in HBF’s Key Messages document to ensure it remains up to date;
- Take the lead on drafting HBF’s Parliamentary Newsletter which is issued quarterly;
- Ensure content on the website is up to date and draft new copy where required;
- Maintain a forward planner of key dates to aid the planning of HBF’s policy and communications works;
- Produce and enhance content for use in HBF’s communications campaigns.
Skills and requirements:
- Ability to research and analyse complex policy areas;
- Understanding of the role of a membership body;
- Excellent communication skills;
- Good attention to detail;
- Strong IT skills;
- Basic knowledge of the political environment affecting the home building industry.
Key relationships: The role will work closely with the Head of Policy and External Affairs but will require good networking and team-working skills across the whole organisation.
Location: The role will be based at our London offices with optional working from home days to be agreed with line manager.
Other requirements: The job may require attending scheduled events at other locations in England and Wales.