Communications Business Partner

Communications Business Partner

Job description
In this pivotal position, you will develop an expert understanding of the minister’s priorities, intent and approach, ensuring the full breadth of HMRC Communications is aligned behind them. You will commission, coordinate and mobilise the right parts of HMRC Communications to deliver coherent, highquality support that reflects both ministerial intent and HMRC’s strategic and operational objectives.

Person specification
You will work daily with XST’s private office and special advisers, ensuring they have a single, authoritative route to call on wider support from the HMRC Communications team.

Act as the central link between XST’s office and HMRC Communications, interpreting ministerial intent and ensuring it is fully understood and actioned across the directorate.
Commission support from the relevant specialist teams Press, Digital, External Affairs, Internal & Change, Strategic, Brand & Campaigns, Compliance, Customer, and Policy Comms ensuring each plays its part in delivering a coherent, strategic offer to the minister.
Ensure HMRC Comms collectively contributes to an integrated grid /forward plan that meets the minister’s intent focusing not only on what we deliver but also how, ensuring activity lands in the spaces where real citizens consume news and information.
Drive a citizenfacing approach to communications aligned to ministerial priorities, identifying and shaping opportunities across digital platforms, communitylevel channels, and trusted intermediaries alongside traditional media handling where necessary.
Provide proactive, highquality strategic advice to the minister and his office on communications opportunities, risks, and how HMRC can best support his priorities and engagement approach.
Strengthen collaboration between HMRC and HM Treasury communications counterparts, ensuring alignment of narrative, timing and messaging.
Lead virtual teams across the Communications Directorate, creating clarity of roles, expectations and delivery standards for all XSTrelated activity.
Champion a culture of insightdriven communications, ensuring that the XST-led communications portfolio is evaluated, learning is embedded, and activity continuously improves.

Essential Criteria

• Strong judgement and confidence in advising ministers, special advisers and senior leaders - including the ability to interpret intent, navigate ambiguity and provide clear, solutionsfocused counsel.
• Demonstrable experience commissioning and coordinating communications activity across multiple teams to deliver integrated, citizenfocused outcomes.
• Excellent analytical skills, using insight to ensure communications reach the right audiences, through the right channels, in the right way.
• Ability to operate at pace while managing a wide range of competing priorities, ensuring clarity, discipline and highquality delivery across a dispersed communications system.
• Flexibility and resilience in a fastmoving ministerial environment, including willingness to support outofhours activity where required.
• Excellent judgement, good news sense, reliability, resilience, creativity and discretion.
  

Desirable Criteria

• Deep expertise in strategic communications and stakeholder engagement, with a proven ability to translate senior leaders’ priorities into coherent direction for large, multidisciplinary communications functions.
• Experience of working closely with ministers, ministerial private offices or equivalent.