Affordability Policy Lead

Location: Alsager

Join Ofwat's Customer Policy Team as an Affordability Policy Lead
* Office

Location:

Birmingham (B5 4UA
) or London (E14 4HD
) with hybrid working
* About Us We are Ofwat, the Water Services Regulation Authority, a non-ministerial government department responsible for regulating the water sector in England and Wales. The water sector is entering a new chapter. The government has set out a bold new direction, bringing together expertise from across the sector to deliver better outcomes for customers and the environment. We are collaborating with fellow regulators to respond to recommendations in The Independent Water Commission Report, the Welsh Government's response to the Green Paper, Shaping the Future of Water Governance in Wales, and the Government's White Paper, A new vision for water.

Ofwat is working with the government and other regulators to help create a new body for England, bringing together our strengths with those of the Drinking Water Inspectorate, the Environment Agency and Natural England. We are also continuing to work with the Welsh Government to support decisions on the future arrangements for Wales. While these changes take shape, our mission remains the same: to hold water companies to account, drive performance, and ensure the sector delivers real value for customers, communities, and the environment.

If you're passionate about making a difference, this is a unique moment to join us and help shape the future of water, and together we can continue to make a positive impact.

The Role As the Affordability Lead within the Customer Policy team you will lead one of Ofwat's key priority areas, providing expert management, support and leadership for our customer policy work on financial vulnerability and support for customers who struggle to pay their bills. You will be responsible for delivering our work to improve company service in this area, including to improve affordability support, understand company handling of customer debt, social tariffs and other financial hardship funds.

You will also support delivery of the wider strategic aims of Ofwat's customer policy work to achieve high levels of customer service and support. You will assess policy trade-offs and impacts on customers to inform balanced recommendations You will build strong relationships with colleagues internally and externally to identify key issues, anticipate opportunities to strengthen affordability support and shape policy priorities.

More generally, you will play a key role in delivery through project and resource planning and line management. You will be expected to support, empower and be a role model for junior members of the team, and to involve yourself in corporate activities that make Ofwat a great place to work. There will also be opportunities to work with colleagues across Ofwat on other programmes and projects to raise understanding of our casework and enforcement work and role, share expertise and deliver joint projects.

To deliver effectively in this role, you will need considerable experience of successful leadership in a high-volume customer-focussed or regulatory environment, where accuracy, timeliness and customer service is paramount. You will have exceptional analytical skills and judgement, with a strong ability to 'join the dots' between related topics, Ofwat's various regulatory tools, and the strategic outcomes we want to deliver.

You will be able to quickly get to grips with new and varied subject areas, including relevant legal obligations, policy expectations, data sources and the strategic context in which they sit. As a policy professional at Ofwat, you will be expected to work flexibly reflecting business priorities and needs. In particular, we anticipate that you…