Kate’s looking for a parliamentary assistant to work in her Westminster office. You will carry out research into and advise on policy areas of key interest to Kate and her constituents, including poverty, employment and social security; disability; health and social care; justice and access to advice. You will advise on the use of parliamentary questions and other parliamentary tools, help Kate to prepare for debates and scrutinising legislation, and take responsibility for communicating Kate’s work in parliament to her constituents and other external audiences.

This is a fixed-term contract until 31 March 2015.

Duties include:

• Undertaking research to advise Kate on policy issues, and developing knowledge of a number of specialist areas including poverty, employment, disability and access to advice
• Preparing and briefing Kate for debates, Parliamentary Questions, committees etc
• Preparing articles and press releases
• Maintaining knowledge of relevant legislation
• Liaison with local and national bodies, government agencies, lobby groups, and with Kate’s constituency office

Person specification & skills required:

• Friendly attitude and willingness to work as part of a team
• Ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, to a range of audiences
• Knowledge of and ability to research and provide briefings on social policy issues, especially in relation to poverty, employment, disability and equality
• Understanding of how parliament works
• Ability to prioritise a heavy and demanding workload and work flexibly and on own initiative
• IT literate, with a sound knowledge of MS office, and of how to access and use research data
• Applicants must be sympathetic to the Labour movement

We will guarantee an interview to all candidates who meet the skills required for the job and who have a disability as defined under the Equality Act 2010; in addition to any information given in the monitoring form, please advise us in your covering letter if this applies to you.