The grand total of government jobs advertised in the Guardian has crept up again this week to 556, with almost double the number of positions in the £80-£100k category compared to last week. There’s clearly an executive drought in the public sector or perhaps frontline redundancies have freed up the cash for a few new ones…
This week’s non-job was selected after being sent over by a supporter and epitomises the sort of misguided recruitment we’ve come to expect from our most vital public service providers.
"Head of Communications
£42252 - £49852 per annum
Our client, an NHS Primary Care Trust, based in east London is looking for a Head of Communications to join their Team. The role will report directly to the Assistant Director of Communications and will be responsible for managing the Communications Manager. The post holder will communicate corporate priorities and performance externally and internally and support the Assistant Director of Communications in developing and continually reviewing the Corporate Communications Strategy.
The post holder will have responsibility for;
- Development of issue focused communications strategies
- Proactive and reactive media relations
- Stakeholder engagement and consultation on key strategic and corporate activities
- Ensuring internal communications is effective and efficient
- Enhancing the PCTs reputation as a local leader of the NHS
- MP and opinion former engagement
- Building relationships with NHS and other partner organisations
- Leading and developing the Communications Manager
- Deputising for the Assistant Director of Communications
The successful candidate will have;
- A degree level or equivalent qualification
- Extensive experiences of working in communications.
- Extensive media relations experience
- Highly developed project management skills
- Experience of working with stakeholders
- Experience of implementing national policy and initiating local policy
- Sound knowledge of internal communications
- Good understanding of corporate identity
Sometimes bullet points work better than paragraphs, and here we have a check list of attributes needed to be a NHS PCT Head of Spin. You may think that our National Health Service should be channelling its resources into things like doctors, nurses, operations and research before spending it on brown-nosing MPs and convincing (deluding) the general public to have blind faith when stories of malpractice surface in the press, but that’s because you’re exactly the old-fashioned sort that needs to have such publicity fed to you to start with. Or at least that’s what the recruiters think. Just imagine what impression you’d have of our hospitals if these reputation managers weren’t hired to ensure you rarely caught wind of the various misadventures that occurred behind closed doors?!
There’s a train of thought that says that if the money that went on flashy executives and surplus (previously unneeded) bureaucrats was spent on what most people would consider to be vital health resources, indeed, if the burgeoning managerial tier within our NHS was stripped back to a manageable and reasonable size and the costs diverted to where they’re actually needed, we might even have a decent service that didn’t require the disaster-management skills of media professionals.
Does it take a brain surgeon to work that one out?