Accessibility Expert & Business Partner (Plus reserves)

Are you passionate about creating inclusive processes, policies, and structures? Are you an experienced collaborator who can confidently engage with all levels of a business?

If so, we’ve got a great opportunity for someone to join our Inclusion & Diversity (I&D) team here at the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), the official UK government body responsible for intellectual property (IP) rights including patents, designs, trademarks, and copyright. IP touches everything that makes life more enjoyable, easier, safer, and prosperous. Our work gives researchers, inventors, creators, businesses, and organisations the confidence to invest their time, energy, and money in doing something new, incentivising innovation that drives economic growth and improvements in society.

It’s an exciting time to join the IPO as we look to achieve our ambition of becoming “one of the most accessible employers and service providers in the UK." Being a psychologically safe and accessible organisation for everyone is essential to building the connected and high-performing organisation we strive to be. This newly created Accessibility Expert and Business Partner role will help us deliver on this ambition as we start to think broader than our internally focused inclusion work and strive for universal accessibility, that is; Enabling someone to participate, irrespective of a disability or any other functional ability, equipment or situation.

Working location

This role will be carried out in-line with IPO Hybrid working arrangements where staff are currently expected to spend at least 40% of their time working onsite from one of our offices. This role is based in our Newport office.

The requirement for attendance at an office location can vary by role so we would encourage candidates to discuss working arrangements with the recruiting manager to agree a reasonable balance between working from home and the office.
Job description

Your role:

You’ll join us as our accessibility subject matter expert, providing leadership, expertise, support, and direction to people and teams across the organisation to make the IPO more accessible for both our people and customers. You’ll be responsible for creating trusted and effective relationships with senior leaders and colleagues across the organisation, improving our offering, and driving accessibility initiatives, specifically:

• Confidently navigating conversations to generate commitment to I&D ambitions, providing expert advice, support, and awareness on intersectional I&D issues, and ensuring processes and procedures align with IPO’s accessibility vision.

• Providing expert advice and recommendations on all things accessibility while keeping up to date with external accessibility trends and techniques.

• Developing an accessibility roadmap; recommending solutions to eliminate barriers caused by systems, processes, or policies. This includes strategising and planning for business changes, like integrating British Sign Language (BSL) into all customer-facing offerings.

• Understanding UKIPO requirements (standards, legislation, and regulation); communicating and translating them into accessibility standards.

• Designing and delivering training, consulting, and guidance to our customer-facing staff, equipping them with the confidence and skills to make adaptations to the services they provide, and creating controls to ensure accessibility standards are met and retained. 

• Working with Policy, Outreach and Research teams to develop strategies to tackle accessibility in IP and across staff networks and the wider team to create a culture where everyone is equipped and accountable for accessibility.

Essential Criteria:

We're looking for enthusiastic individuals who have a good knowledge of the Equality Act 2010 and experience in:

Creating trusted and effective relationships with subject matter experts across an organisation to drive successful universal accessibility initiatives.
Developing and delivering an organisation’s accessibility vision.
Making recommendations to avoid or resolve accessibility issues; eliminating disadvantages as a result of systems, processes, or policies.