Senior Assistant Economist

We recognise the challenges that people with (multiple) protected characteristics may experience on the job market and in their career progression. We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible, and we hope to attract applications from underrepresented groups, including ethnic minorities, people with a disability, and people with gender diverse identities.

Are you an experienced economist with a strong background in appraisal and would like to influence decisions?

Can you deliver high quality analysis and can build effective positive working relationships?

Would you like the opportunity to work in multidisciplinary analytical team that has a direct impact on the journey’s individual’s make?

If so, we'd love to hear from you!

Local Transport is a high priority for the Government and the Prime Minister. The Local and Regional Transport Analysis Division (LRTA) is a friendly, highly motivated, multidisciplinary analytical team made up of 30 economists, transport modellers, operational and social researchers. The portfolio of work of the division is very broad – encompassing analysis to inform local road, bus, light rail and taxi policy, active and accessible travel, London Underground financing and capital projects. It also covers analysis in support of place-based policies including the Government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda, new devolution deals, transport infrastructure to support house building and transport in cities to support economic growth. We provide analysis to understand the impact of and support recovery from Covid-19, and the future bus strategy including reforming the Bus subsidy and evaluating Bus Service Improvement Plans and the £2 bus fare cap.

The policy areas we support have strong links to high priority Government strategies to deliver decarbonisation, level up the country, make transport more inclusive, and improve the transport user experience. LRTA team members work flexibly across team boundaries, supporting each other to deliver the top priorities of the Local Transport and Regions Cities and Devolution directorates. We also work closely with other analysts in our directorate and the wider department.

We are looking for three SEO Economists to cover one of the three areas:

• Bus Strategy and Funding Analysis
• Local Authority Capability and Capacity and Devolution Analysis
• Local Transport Analysis

At the point of interview all candidates will be asked for their preferred portfolio (Bus Strategy and Funding Analysis, Local Authority Capability and Capacity and Devolution Analysis, Local Transport Analysis). As we will be appointing this role based on merit (offering to the highest scorer first) we will take your preference into consideration at the point of offer, but please note that this will not be guaranteed.

We expect postholders to be flexible to evolving priorities and to contribute to analysis which supports multiple local transport policy teams. Key areas of work over the coming year for each role could include:

Bus Strategy and Funding Analysis

• Future Bus Strategy – you will work with policy and other analysts to provide value for money advice on future bus policy proposals and to evaluate the evidence supporting the current policies such as the high profile £2 bus fare cap. This will provide the opportunity to provide incentives on reform and a once in a generational opportunity to shape the market with a high level of interest from No10 and HMT.
• Bus subsidy reform - the main ongoing funding stream for buses is the Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG) at almost £260 million per year. It is a fossil fuel subsidy and your role will be to provide analysis on how this could be reformed to deliver the National Bus Strategy and deliver benefits such as growing patronage, increasing efficiency, improving the environment and mode shift.
• Bus Service Improvement Plans - this is a £1.2bn funding stream designed to transform the quality and frequency of bus services in England outside London. Your role will be to apply further scrutiny to places' proposals. This will involve checking whether they are likely to increase demand via making buses quicker, more reliable and easier to use.
• Line management opportunity

Local Authority Capability and Capacity and Devolution Analysis

• Building Local Authority analytical capability and capacity - you will lead on elements of our work programme for building analytical capability and capacity in Local Authorities. This will be particularly important as LAs are developing updated Local Transport Plans, which set out their longer-term strategic vision for improving transport in their area. Your work will involve engaging and communicating with Local Authorities to help to improve their business cases and bids for competitive funds, for example through supporting and running webinars and workshops for large numbers of stakeholders. It will also involve developing tools that can simplify and improve analysis processes that LAs are required to do when bidding for funding and developing business cases.
• Devolution analysis – The government has set itself a mission that, by 2030, every part of England that wants a devolution deal will have a devolution deal, with powers at or approaching the highest level of devolution, with a simplified, long-term funding settlement. Your role will cover analytical support and assurance to shape the transport elements of new devolution deals, such as the £1.4 billion deal recently announced for the North-East.

Local Transport Analysis

This role will cover work analysis for the Local Transport directorate covering key areas such as the Levelling Up fund, Decarbonisation Analysis, and city region funding. Key work streams include:

• Quantifying Carbon Reductions: Decarbonisation is a key strategic objective for the department and wider government. Your role will support delivery of the quantifying carbon reductions (QCR) guidance, including technical support and engagement with wider stakeholders in Local Authorities. You may also lead engagement with local transport authorities and academics and carry out further research on local transport decarbonisation, with the aim of helping to develop to evidence base on Transport decarbonisation.
• Levelling Up Fund: Your role will support the delivery of the Levelling Up Fund, including working with local authorities to deliver schemes which have been funded as part of round 2. This is a key fund for government which aims to improve opportunities and outcomes for left behind areas.
• Other responsibilities may include providing analytical support to the London funding and financing teams, analysis to inform negotiations to agree future funding for Transport for London to enable recovery from Covid-19 recovery, and capital investment to maintain and improve the network. You may also work on developing the evidence base for highways maintenance, including development of a new appraisal tool.

About you

To be successful in this role as a Senior Assistant Economist, we are looking for someone who will who will bring their expertise to bear on unpicking and developing analysis of the regulatory and investment impacts of decisions being taken in policy. You are someone who can communicate complex technical information to a wide range of stakeholder in non technical terms, communicating with impact. You will be a proactive team member who can work collaboratively to achieve progress on shared objectives

Responsibilities

Key accountabilities of the role include:

• Leading value-for-money advice, to provide impactful analysis to influence complex policy areas, for example where the strategic context is evolving, or where evidence is incomplete/ inconsistent and business case submissions;
• Working directly with senior decision makers in other parts of DfT and with external partners. Building strong relationships and leveraging areas of synergy, including in contexts where the agendas of stakeholders diverge;
• Working independently and autonomously to solve problems and find solutions;
• Undertaking in-house economic analysis and leading work with consultants and policy colleagues on complex cases;
• Working closely with policy colleagues to ensure proposals are evidence based; communicating results to senior colleagues including policy teams, including leading on presentations;
• Application and skills development in econometrics, coding in R and Python.

For an in-depth insight into the role please refer to the Role Profile.

Additional Information

A minimum of 40% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace, although requirements to attend other locations for official business, or carry out detached duty in another DfT workplace, will also count towards this level of attendance.

• a 2.1 honours bachelors degree (or international equivalent) with at least 50 per cent of economics in the two final years (or equivalent); or
• a Post Graduate Diploma (or equivalent) or a Masters degree in economics, including a substantial amount of taught macro and microeconomics.

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Working Together
• Communicating and Influencing

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Application of knowledge
• Analysis of data
• Effective Communication

We only ask for evidence of these technical skills on your application form:

• Analysis of data

Being part of our brilliant Civil Service means you will have access to a wide range of fantastic benefits. We offer generous annual leave, attractive pension options, flexible working, inclusive working environments and much more to support a healthy work/life balance.

Find out more about what it's like working at the Department for Transport

Job contact :

Name :
Caroline Humphrys
Email :
Caroline.Humphrys@dft.gov.uk

Recruitment team :

Email :
dftrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk