Senior Analyst

Reference number
193400
Grade
Senior Executive Officer (SEO), or Grade 7 (G7)
Role type
Closing date
23 Mar 2022
Salary
£40,228 to £61,748
Location
Flexible, London
Open to
All Civil Service staff, Members of the Government Statistician Group, Government Statistical Service
Organisation
Office of the Children's Commissioner

The Children’s Commissioner’s office (CCO) aims to put children’s needs and voices at the centre of Government policy. The CCO aims to assess policy and practice from a child’s point of view. The Commissioner is about to start a large programme of research on Families, Family Support and Childcare.

This research programme involves both qualitative and quantitative research. The Commissioner wants to understand whether services for families meet the needs of children within families. The Commissioner will also look at how we could improve children’s outcomes by making sure public services understand the needs of families.

The research programme will:

  • analyse data on families and family composition from The Big Ask – this is the largest ever survey of England’s children, with over 550,000 respondents and more than 250,000 free text responses
  • commission a new Families survey and do qualitative research with children and families from different backgrounds and across the UK – this research aims to understand their lives, what they value in family life and the support they may need
  • hold semi-structured interviews and roundtables with professionals who directly provide support to families, and analyse the effect of existing government policies
  • collect and analyse data from major cohort studies; panel surveys, like the Family Resources Survey; and government administrative data, including the National Pupil Database and the Early Years census

The role

The CCO has an exciting secondment opportunity for a Senior Analyst to work on this programme of research. The successful candidate will start as soon as possible to support this work until October 2022.

The role provides an excellent opportunity to experience work within an Arm’s length-body. You will work in a small specialist team in the CCO on this high-profile project.

This role will involve supporting the Deputy Director of Research to lead on the analytical side of the project and make use of various data sources. You will:

  • investigate various national panel survey data, like the Family Resources Survey, and administrative data sources, like the National Pupil Database, with guidance from the Deputy Director of Research – you will also help the Head of Data Collection get these data
  • use R, SQL or Python to consider the new survey and administrative data sources while thinking about the research questions – you will also suggest ways of linking the data to maximise its use
  • lead the on the data analysis for the project, including The Big Ask quantitative and qualitative findings, administrative and survey data – this includes assessing whether it would be practical to do multi-variate analysis, and trial new methodologies and techniques.
  • produce high quality, comprehensive and reproducible analysis – this includes extracting, explaining and clearly presenting important findings and any limitations
  • work closely with other members of the project team including Research and Policy professionals and Senior Management

At G7 level, it is expected that the successful candidate will have overall project and matrix management responsibilities.

How to apply

If you are a Senior Analyst and you are interested in this role you should send an Expression of Interest (EOI) to the Deputy Director of Research, Donna Phillips at Donna.Phillips@childrenscommissioner.gov.uk.

Applications when they are received. Candidates may then be invited to join a brief remote interview.

The vacancy will be open until midnight on 23 March 2022.

Expressions of Interest (EOIs)

Your EOI should be 750 words long. It should give evidence of:

  • any relevant skills and experience you have of working in an analytical profession
  • strong analytical skills and experience of working with at least one relevant analytical software package such as R, Python or SQL
  • any experience you have in working on relevant research areas
  • an in-depth understanding and experience of research and statistics
  • excellent written and oral communication skills

To be appointed at G7 level, candidates must also demonstrate previous project management and line or matrix management responsibilities.

Other application information

You must provide contact information for your line manager. You will need to confirm that you have discussed this opportunity with them, and that they have agreed to release you by 1 April 2022, or as soon as possible after this date.

Please note that all CCO staff are dividing their time between our offices in Westminster and home working. But we will consider other working arrangements.

Successful applications

The Deputy Director of Research will assess all EOIs equally and will decide which candidate to appoint. They do not need to use a formal scoring process.

The Deputy Director of Research may contact your line manager to check the information you have provided in your EOI.

Please note that there is no right of appeal.

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