Learning and Development Partner (Census)

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UKs largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social and demographic topics. These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime and migration.

This role will sit in the Central Learning team within ONS who are responsible for building the skills needed to deliver our organisational priorities, aligned with Government Skills policies and relevant learning frameworks. Working with senior leaders and partners across the organisation, the team ensure compliance with learning processes, develop ONS learning, facilitate appropriate engagements to build capability and act as the central point of contact for all L&D activity.

This role will lead stakeholder engagement with the Census team and build relationships with relevant partners internally and externally to ensure quality learning interventions are developing the skills we need for the delivery of the census programme. The aim of this role is to drive a high-performing, engaged and future-ready ONS through learning and skills development aligned with delivering organisational priorities.

This role will be responsible for partnering with the Census team to understand learning needs, working with learning and technical training teams to curate, design and procure learning solutions and design appropriate learning pathways. The postholder will also lead various L&D activities as the landscape dictates.    

Key Responsibilities

• Partner with stakeholders to understand learning needs and build effective learning solutions
• Lead and coordinate engagement with Census colleagues to ensure effective delivery of L&D activities throughout the year, including some delivery and reporting and evaluation using feedback data
• Conduct learning needs analyses and performance-gap assessments to identify skill and knowledge gaps
• Manage the full life cycle of learning projects for census colleagues, including budgeting, resource allocation, and stakeholder communication
• Regularly engage with Civil Service Learning, cultivating a successful dialogue to ensure key ONS learning developments are compliant
• Review, refresh and further develop policies, processes, guidance and learning content, and understand how this supports our wider skills-led approach to deploying talent

Essential Criteria

• Ability to build and maintain strong working relationships across teams, the organisation and with external stakeholders; particularly with those at a senior level.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including presenting to large audiences and the ability to influence engagement and action.
• Enjoys working at pace and comfortable with change.
• Ability to take the initiative, prioritise workflow, and effectively manage multiple priorities.
• Ability to manage challenges and present solutions to problems.
• Some experience/knowledge of the Government Skills landscape and/or general L&D.
• Can work confidently to analyse and interpret insights and data to drive activities and ideas.