Heritage Resilience Co-ordinator

House of Commons

The House of Commons is a unique and exciting place to work right at the heart of the UK's thriving democratic system. 

Behind the scenes, the House of Commons Service is made up of more than 3,000 employees who support and facilitate the smooth day to day running of the House. They provide professional services to Members of Parliament, their staff, and the wider parliamentary community.

Staff Benefits

In addition to your salary, we offer an attractive range of benefits including: 

• 30 days’ annual leave (increasing to 35 days after first full leave year). 
• Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%. 
• Access to training and development. 
• Flexible working. 
• Interest-free season ticket loan and bicycle loan. 

Introduction

The Parliamentary Art Collection includes 10,000 artworks, the majority of which are on display across the Parliamentary Estate, and consists of paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and other media ranging from ceramics to textiles, medals, and political collectibles. The Historic Furniture and Decorative Arts Collection includes 11,000 objects including historic furniture, clocks, silver, and ceramics. It is a working collection with many objects in daily use across the Parliamentary Estate fulfilling the role for which they were designed and made. The Architectural Fabric Collection includes over 5,000 items that were commissioned for the Palace of Westminster but have been detached from the built fabric and historic interiors.

The Heritage Resilience Co-ordinator sits in the Heritage Collections Team (HCT) within Strategic Estates but provides salvage and resilience support to all of Parliament’s Collections teams. The HCT are responsible for the professional management of three of Parliament’s six collections of national and international importance: the Parliamentary Art Collection, the Historic Furniture and Decorative Arts Collection, and the Architectural Fabric Collection.

The Role 

We are looking for a Heritage Resilience Co-ordinator to join our Heritage Collections Team. This role will work closely across all the Parliamentary Collections (the Parliamentary Archives, the House of Commons Library, and the House of Lords Library). You will have the ability to develop good working relationships and networks with collections and non-collections teams as well as wider UK Collections salvage networks. This post will ensure that Parliament is prepared for, and effectively manages, incidents and salvage for the Collections across both Houses. The Heritage Resilience Co-ordinator will work closely with the Heritage Resilience Assistant and report to the Heritage Lead for Programmes, Resourcing and Risk.

In this role, you will maintain and extend reviews of all Collections’ incident response plans, procedures, and supporting documentation to better align practices across teams and the wider Parliamentary Estate. They will ensure that each Collection’s salvage lists of priority objects are in place and up to date such that each team can independently and jointly respond in a dynamic salvage situation. They will be required to identify areas where training is required and manage and advise on incident management supplies and training, including the writing of business cases.

Location

This role will be based on the Parliamentary Estate in Westminster, London with visits to off-site stores expected as required.

Additional Duties

You will be expected to undertake an on-call Duty Heritage Officer (DHO) role. There is an on-call allowance available and training in the specifics of the role will be provided.

Skills and Experience 

• Significant experience working in an arts or heritage environment, undertaking risk assessments, and promoting collections care to a diverse and sometimes non-specialist audience.
• Able to accommodate suddenly arising / unexpected workloads whilst ensuring continued delivery of routine work.
• Able to work with difficult or challenging partners, stakeholders or customers whilst upholding the principles of equality, diversity, and inclusion; effectively influencing to gain buy-in for required action.
• Designing and delivering original material for presentations, training, and/or exercises for teams or organisations.
• Takes the initiative, bringing forward new ideas to create or improve systems, guidance or ways of working / to spot a gap in existing systems or guidance and propose how to address it.
• Able to implement a programme of work or a project over time, ensuring that the objectives of the work are clearly articulated and that the design of the work programme or project fulfils these objectives.

Next Steps 

CV & Cover Letter – If you would like to apply for this role, please submit your CV and cover letter with a 500-word limit. 

More information on the role and the full criteria can be found in the Job Description

Please note that most job offers will be made at the minimum of the salary range, other than in exceptional circumstances.