Alexandra Laing

Experience

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  HM Revenue & Customs

  Feb 2017 - Sept 2019

  Compliance Caseworker, Wealthy & Mid-sized Business Compliance

  Lead investigator for high profile tax enquiries where discretion is essential. Use of strong communication skills including when and when not to apply appropriate pressure to get results without compromising values. Solid judgement essential due to potential for Tribunal level/media scrutiny of all work. Achievements include:- Setting up a Mental Health and Wellbeing Network for >100 local colleagues.- Talent Lead for 300 employees across the North supporting development and training needs.- Mentoring fellow disabled colleagues.- Creation and running of internal engagement newsletter promoting local initiatives. Show less

• 

  Cabinet Office

  Oct 2019 - Sept 2020

  Prime Minister’s insight/relationship specialist for the South of England. Responsible for:- Production of briefings for Cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister (PM) for daily televised coronavirus press conferences and to support PM and Chancellor visits/events, including collating and presenting data from a wide range of sources, making recommendations, and specialising in local insight.- Co-ordinating cross-government responses to complex national and international emergency Covid-19 business enquiries for No10 and Cabinet Office. Identifying cross-government policy owners, taking complex and ambiguous policy and translating to clear and sensitive external comms within 48 hours of enquiry being received, balancing the needs of up to 6 different OGDs and international governments at once. - Creation and implementation of crisis relationship management tools for the National Resilience Hub which fed insight live into COBRA meetings and were later adopted as best practice for the Brexit Transition Hub. Show less Sole responsibility for all Cabinet Office's North West external stakeholders (previously known as North West Government Office).- Maintaining and developing specialised local community knowledge to enable effective messaging for Prime Minister (PM) priority campaigns including youth unemployment, knife crime, mental health, and education. - Managing a wide network of contacts on the behalf of No10, including charities, businesses, and universities, including working with these partners to develop, implement, and evaluate low cost/no cost OASIS plans on PM priority campaigns such as British Science Week. - Delivering events including the annual North East Government Communication Service Academy and regional visits/engagements of influential officials to promote campaigns. Delivering GCS’s “Communicating Locally” training. - Cabinet Office social media lead for the North of England including sole responsibility for evaluation. Show less

  • Regional Researcher - Prime Minister's Office

    Mar 2020 - Sept 2020

  • Regional Campaigns Manager - Prime Minister's Office

    Oct 2019 - Mar 2020
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  Government Office for Science

  Oct 2020 - Nov 2020

  Press Officer

  Secondment - Emergency support to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) for the implementation of the second national lockdown.- Rapid handling of media queries to major national and international outlets.- Provision of lines to take for SAGE, GOS and the Chief Scientific Advisor Sir Patrick Vallance.- Directly supporting the CSA on strategic handling of media events including preparation for televised and private press briefings, one to one press interviews for op-eds, and Public Accounts Committee events.- Presenting recommendations to improve the flow of information between No10 and GOS comms teams to ensure a more joined-up approach.- Translating complex scientific jargon to produce clear reports, clarifications, and advice. Show less

• 

  HM Revenue & Customs

  Oct 2020 - Jun 2023

  I led the External Engagement team for Making Tax Digital: Penalty Reform. A combined Communications (External Affairs) and Project Delivery (Stakeholder Lead) role, I was embedded in a project environment.Responsible for ensuring UK VAT paying customers are prepared for reforms to interest and penalties.- Ownership of all strategic external communications for the project, including development of SMART objectives, OASIS plan, implementation plan, and evaluation framework.- Building from scratch a small team of mixed background/experience, developing individuals professionally, setting direction and team culture.- Collaborating closely with Project Delivery, Policy, and DDaT teams to ensure communications planning remains accurate and to feed in insight to inform decision making. - Commissioning behavioural and statistical analysis and tailoring this for technical audiences across the project to ensure evidence-led decision making at all levels. Show less Strategic Communications for the newly formed Brexit Transition operational directorate.- Preparing strategic communications for short (3 months), medium (12 months covering radical audience transition), and long term (3 years) timescales running simultaneously to ensure a cohesive and targeted internal communications culture. - Producing core insight of the audience covering communications styles, channels, frequency, and evaluation to maximise effectiveness.- Supporting the Brexit Transition Director and Board to develop their personal communications styles in line with wider corporate communications objectives.- Developing upskill campaigns to target weaknesses in the audience’s ability to use channels that were effective in other comparable directorates. Show less Solely responsible for conducting a review of all HMRC-wide internal communications products and practises including making and implementing recommendations.- Analysing all existing practices and identifying pain points for audience, stakeholders, and wider comms team.- Facilitating the roll out of a new monitoring and evaluation product, including evaluation plans for how to use the new insight to ensure more strategic and impactful communication.- Creation of new information and record keeping processes to streamline commissions, reducing duplication and freeing up time for more valuable tasks. Show less

  • External Engagement Lead, Making Tax Digital Penalty Reform

    Mar 2021 - Jun 2023

  • Communications Business Partner, Customer Service Group

    Jan 2021 - Mar 2021

  • Content and Channels Manager

    Oct 2020 - Jan 2021
• 

  Department for Science, Innovation and Technology

  Jun 2023 - Apr 2024

  Having developed Insight and Evaluation strategies, processes, and tools during my role as Strategic Communications Lead I was asked to dedicate my time to developing this further and become Head of Insight and Evaluation.I was responsible for managing the Communications Directorate's research contracts including liaising with colleagues in commercial, finance, and policy to navigate internal processes in a newly formed department where responsibilities were unclear.I worked with our contract leads to develop a range of insight commissions designed to build a bank of understanding of key audiences and priorities. This work became of priority interest for the Secretary of State. My team developed an Insight Hub designed to be a single point of contact for all communications professionals under the DSIT umbrella, where they could design outputs, campaigns and plans based on relevant, timely insight. I identified that the directorate required upskilling on evaluation and led a culture change away from reporting outputs to producing usable recommendations. I developed a variety of low/now cost products to best display this information and this work was picked up by No10 as an example of innovation within the Government Communication Service, resulting in me being asked to present this to the Head of Government Communications.In addition to my core responsibilities I was a proactive advocate for wellbeing in the workplace. Show less Responsible for:• Providing strategic communications advice to senior policy officials including horizon scanning, identifying communications priorities, risks and opportunities, and shaping evidence-based policy and communications plans.• Advising Ministers and Special Advisers on communications planning and strategy to ensure their priorities are delivered, including ensuring development and implementation of communications plans as well as tracking milestones and progress.• Managing a varied stakeholder network across a wide portfolio including working with teams across disciplines, across Whitehall and Partner Organisations, ensuring clarity and coordination to achieve outcomes.• With SLT, shaping the culture of a new Department, ensuring appropriate systems to underpin communications activity are in place and building a culture of support and wellbeing.Portfolio responsibilities include:- Online Safety Bill- Semiconductors- Future Telecommunications - Building Digital UK- Geospatial Commission- Ofcom- Social Tariffs - And other cyber, digital, and technology priority areas. Show less

  • Head of Insight and Evaluation

    Nov 2023 - Apr 2024

  • Deputy Head of Strategic Communications

    Jun 2023 - Feb 2024
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  HM Revenue & Customs

  Apr 2024 - now

  Responsible for delivery and iteration of all MTD guidance for customers and agents across various formats in line with user needs and delivery plans, including flat gov.uk guidance, interactive gov.uk guidance and HMRC manuals.Actioning insight recommendations from formal research pieces to dedicated specialist forums to ensure products are effective and form an efficient part of wider customer readiness activities. Strong collaboration across the wider business with an eye on HMRC-wide priorities.Leading Data Retention for the Strategy and Policy area, ensuring adherence with legal and business frameworks and creating and maintaining new systems to mitigate future issues whilst maintaining usability. Show less Temporary support to the Making Tax Digital Change Readiness Team. I led HMRC hosted, face-to-face events management planning for a proposed series of events with an extremely short lead in time.I was responsible for upskilling the stakeholder management team on event strategy in addition to planning and delivering events with no prior precedent across the programme. I worked closely with Senior Leaders to ensure the events had clear goals linked to wider strategic objectives whilst remaining achievable in challenging circumstances, including managing expectation both internally and externally. Show less

  • Senior Policy Guidance Lead, Making Tax Digital

    Mar 2025 - now

  • Senior Policy Advisor

    Jun 2024 - Mar 2025

  • External Stakeholder Manager, Making Tax Digital

    Apr 2024 - Jul 2024