County Development Officer (Essex)

Job Title: County Development Officer (Essex)

Responsible to: East of England Campaign Manager

Salary: £24,000 per annum plus pension contribution 

Tenure: Permanent

Hours: Full time (37.5 hours per week)

Closing date:  5pm Thursday 31st October 2024

Job Description

We are looking for a passionate and motivated individual to support and grow Liberal Democrat teams across Essex. A key aim is to remove the Conservative majority at the County Council elections next May, and go on to prepare for future local successes.

We aim to build on the party’s historic success at the General Election on 4 July, where we secured huge swings against the Conservatives across the UK and, here in Essex, won the Chelmsford constituency. 

The successful candidate will be a key part of the team responsible for developing and implementing an Essex-wide plan to maximise Liberal Democrat success in May 2025. Chelmsford needs to grow its team to sustain success and every other Local Party needs significant capacity development to maximise the potential to win.

So, this job is not about running campaigns. There are three key aspects to the job:

1. Build capacity: encouraging and supporting the existing, small band of key activists to engage in activity to find new helpers, turn helpers into activists and activists into leaders.
2. Training and development: identifying the barriers to achieving this and identifying or delivering training to overcome them.
3. Common literature: artworking template literature, to create similar leaflets for each target division,  and project-managing production across the county, so that local parties can save money and improve quality with bulk buys.

You will be supported in the role by an experienced regional campaigns manager and talented local teams. 

This is a rewarding role that offers the opportunity to deliver real and historic political change and positively impact lives across Essex. It will also give you the chance to develop your strategic and political insights and abilities, as part of a possible future career in politics. This is an exciting time for the Liberal Democrats nationwide. 

From now until May 2025, the key focus is County Council seat gains across Essex. After that, the focus will be winning seats in May 2026 where relevant; then retaining Lib Dem control of Chelmsford City Council in 2027 and gains elsewhere in Essex, and re-electing an MP in Chelmsford.

Key Tasks

• Work with the regional campaign manager from party HQ to conduct an audit of each local party to identify strengths, weaknesses, and specific development needs.
• Assist local teams and the county campaign team in setting development goals for the target county council seats, focusing on capacity building and activist engagement. Monitor and scrutinise local party progress against agreed goals, offering targeted support and guidance as needed.
• Act as a link between the county-wide campaign team and local teams, ensuring that key activists feel supported and valued.
• Work with Liberal Democrat HQ, key activists, and local parties to develop an activist training programme that addresses identified weaknesses and delivers an overall increase in county-wide campaign skills.
• Together with the county campaign team, monitor and review campaign data to inform decisions and strategy.
• Together with the county campaign team, set a county-wide messaging strategy and integrate this into each local team’s campaign.
• Meet regularly with the HQ campaign manager to review key campaign developments and set targets.
• Work with local teams to produce and deliver a programme of doorstep communication with voters for each local campaign.
• Take a leading role in the production, coordination, and delivery of a county-wide literature plan – with shared, focused messaging and high-quality design and content.
• Work with commercial printers to secure bulk buy deals on printed literature and deliver the best possible value campaign..
• Ensure local parties are producing regular email newsletters for voters, members, and helpers, and facilitate the production of regular (probably quarterly) paper newsletter for members.
• Work with local teams to ensure that members and activists are regularly contacted by phone to increase volunteer engagement and development.
• Attend other meetings and training sessions as required.

Person Specification

Essential

• Strong ability to organise and self-motivate, and to set your own programme of work to meet pre-agreed objectives.
• Skilled in handling multiple projects at the same time, ensuring workload is prioritised to meet stakeholder demands.
• Ability to plan out projects and deadline tasks.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with a high level of accuracy and compelling style.
• Experience of engaging and motivating volunteers.
• An enthusiasm for developing the skills of others.
• Strong interpersonal skills, with an ability to inspire and persuade.
• Excellent computer skills with up-to-date knowledge of social media and Microsoft Office.
• Sympathy with the aims and values of the Liberal Democrats.

Desirable

• Knowledge of and experience using Liberal Democrat IT packages, including Connect, Lighthouse and Affinity Publisher.
• Full, clean driving licence and access to a vehicle.
• Experience of delivering training.
• Experience of planning projects or workstreams.
• A good understanding of messaging and graphic design in the political context.

Workplace 

Flexible: your working week will be split between being in Chelmsford (either with the local party or in the MP’s office), or working from home. You will also visit local parties around Essex and may be expected to attend occasional staff meetings in Cambridge or London.

Key stakeholders

You will formally report to the party’s Regional Campaigns Manager and work closely with the Chair of the Essex Campaigns Sub-Committee. Other stakeholders include the Campaign Chairs in each Local Party, Council Leaders and the MP for Chelmsford or her representative.

How to apply:

Please fully read through the requirements of the job before applying.

• A full CV of no more than two pages and including a telephone number and email address
• A covering letter (no more than one A4 page) setting out why you want the job and how your experience and skills are relevant to it 

To be considered for this position, please submit your application to spencer.caminsky@libdems.org.uk.

You are also welcome to ask the East of England team any questions about the role at Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference in Brighton, if you are coming along.

 We will be reviewing applications as they come in and reserve the right to appoint prior to the closing date.

 Please note:  We will not be able to employ you if you are not eligible to work in the UK. We will not be able to obtain a work permit on your behalf.

Applicants are encouraged to inform us if any reasonable adjustments are needed to be made during any part of the recruitment process.

Please let us have details of your current salary and two referees including one from your current employer – if you would prefer us not to contact them until a later stage of the selection process, please let us know.

We will not notify applicants if their application has been unsuccessful a shortlisting stage.

The  Party  believes  it  is  essential  to  foster  equity,  equality,  diversion  and  inclusion  within  our workforce.  We  want  our employees  to  thrive  in  an  environment  where  everyone  is  welcome and  supported  to  achieve  their  potential.  It  is  important  to  celebrate  what  makes  us  unique  and that  you  feel  valued,  appreciated  and  free  to  be  who  you  are.