The Trade Agreements and Policy Analysis (TAPA) is an embedded analytical team that sits within the Trade Policy Implementation and Negotiations (TPIN) team in DBT. Our mission is to deliver high-quality evidence and analysis that shapes the UK’s positions in trade negotiations.
We are a multidisciplinary team made up of economist, social researchers and statisticians. We work closely with policy and analyst teams from across DBT and Whitehall. Our team undertakes a range of analytical projects including, modelling, analysis of complex data sets, case study work, impact assessments as well as monitoring and evaluation.
The core responsibilities of TAPA are:
* Providing high quality analysis on the value of trade agreements and negotiating positions to negotiators, ministers, external stakeholders, and the public.
* Identifying where the UK can achieve greatest value for stakeholders including businesses and consumers in future trade agreements.
* Providing policy analysis on trade in services, investment, digital, procurement, intellectual property, as well as gender, innovation and the environmental commitments in FTAs.
* Monitoring and evaluation of free trade agreements and its impact across the economy.
* Shaping the department’s trade policy strategy.
The TAPA team is an inclusive and diverse team that aspires to be a great and fun place to work, where individuals can grow and develop, work life balance is taken seriously, and the analysis is all about making a meaningful impact. We encourage and value innovative approaches and ideas to tackling complex analytical questions and influencing policy direction.
This specific role is responsible leading and managing a team of around 10 analysts who provide the evidence and analysis needed to support trade negotiation of the services, investment, digital and IP chapters in free trade agreements (FTAs). The UK is involved in simultaneously negotiating multiple trade deals creating high demand for our analysis with a mix of immediate demands and long-term evidence base building. As team lead you would be responsible for ensuring the team provides high quality, impactful analysis to support trade negotiations, while supporting the continuous development and well-being of the team.
The post hold would be required to support their team to provide analytical input into the development of the UK’s negotiating mandate and support the negotiation. The analysis is a mix of macroeconomic assessment of country relationships to identify priority areas for negotiations to focus on, and micro-economic assessment of individual policy asks to inform trade-offs in negotiations.
As team lead, you need to have a good understanding of the techniques used but also an understanding of how these can best be applied to policy questions and the ability to explain and defended results with senior policy makers.
The team’s current projects include:
* Supporting ongoing FTA negotiations with Switzerland, India and GCC.
* Supporting CPTPP accession negotiations.
* Preparing for FTA negotiations with Turkey.
* Supporting work on future UK-US trade relations.
* Reviewing the evidence base across our portfolio to help plan future work.
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