Program Policy Analyst (Research & Stat Officer 4)

About Us

The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (EECD) is leading the transformation of the early years and public education system in Nova Scotia. We are doing this by designing an innovative curriculum, facilitating excellence in teaching and learning, ensuring an inclusive education experience, and working closely with our partners in early learning and education. This will provide children, students, and families with a strong foundation for success. This department is a perfect fit for those that want to be part of the future of early learning and public education in the province by supporting student learning in a progressive and responsive policy environment. 

About Our Opportunity

The Early Years Branch is seeking a highly skilled policy professional to support operational policy development and coordination across a complex and evolving portfolio of initiatives.

As the Program Policy Analyst, you will provide independent policy analysis, strategic advice, governance support, and coordination services that help operational and project teams advance key priorities. Working across multiple initiatives, you will assess complex issues, develop policy options and recommendations, identify risks and interdependencies, and support informed decision-making by management and senior leadership.

You will support projects and operational teams through structured, time-limited assignments involving policy analysis, governance support, policy inventories, environmental scans, issue assessment, and policy framework development. Working closely with operational and project teams, Legal Services, Corporate Policy, and senior leaders, you will help ensure policy work is coordinated, evidence-informed, and aligned with branch priorities.

In addition to providing policy analysis and advice, you will play an important role in improving how policy work is conducted across the branch. This includes identifying opportunities to strengthen policy development processes, governance practices, policy coordination, research approaches, analytical tools, and decision-support activities to improve efficiency, consistency, and quality. The successful candidate will be expected to help modernize policy and analytical practices through the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and other emerging tools that enhance policy development, analysis, documentation, and decision-making.

Primary Accountabilities

• Conduct research, environmental scans, jurisdictional reviews, and analysis to support operational policy development and policy change initiatives.
• Assess complex policy issues and develop evidence-based options, recommendations, and advice for management and senior leadership.
• Evaluate policy risks, trade-offs, impacts, and emerging issues, and recommend practical courses of action.
• Develop and maintain policies, standards, procedures, frameworks, and other policy instruments.
• Prepare briefing materials, issue analyses, discussion papers, and other decision-support documents.
• Support coordination of policy development activities across projects, programs, and operational initiatives.
• Identify policy interdependencies, risks, gaps, and alignment issues across initiatives and provide recommendations to support decision-making.
• Support governance processes through policy analysis, documentation of decisions, and development of recommendations and supporting materials.
• Maintain effective working relationships with operational teams, project teams, Legal Services, Corporate Policy, and other partners.
• Support the development and continuous improvement of policy frameworks, methodologies, tools, governance processes, and policy lifecycle practices.
• Maintain policy inventories, policy mapping, and information required to support coordination, prioritization, and alignment of policy work.
• Conduct business, operational, and stakeholder impact analysis related to policy and program initiatives.
• Identify opportunities to improve the efficiency, quality, and consistency of policy development, analysis, governance, and decision-support activities.
• Support modernization of policy and analytical practices through the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI), automation, digital tools, and other emerging technologies.

Qualifications and Experience

As the successful candidate, you will have one of the following:

• A Bachelor’s degree in public administration, political science, economics, social sciences, business administration, law, public policy, or a related field, plus seven years of related experience; or
• A Master’s degree in one of the above fields, plus five years of related experience.

Your related experience must include progressive work in policy development, policy analysis, research, strategic planning, governance support, business analysis, or a related discipline.

You also bring experience in:

• Conducting research, analyzing complex issues, evaluating policy options, and developing evidence-based recommendations.
• Preparing briefing materials, reports, discussion papers, policy documents, business cases, or other decision-support materials for management and senior leadership.
• Providing analysis, advice, and recommendations to management, senior leadership, governance committees, or decision-making bodies.
• Working on complex initiatives involving multiple stakeholders, competing priorities, governance processes, and cross-functional collaboration.
• Applying business process improvement, workflow analysis, continuous improvement, or related approaches to support policy development, governance, analytical, or decision-support activities.

You demonstrate strong analytical, critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, facilitation, and relationship-building skills. You are able to independently assess complex issues, evaluate risks and trade-offs, and develop practical, evidence-based recommendations.

You also have demonstrated experience using artificial intelligence, automation tools, digital technologies, or knowledge management solutions to improve policy development, research, analysis, documentation, decision support, operational efficiency, or continuous improvement activities. The successful candidate will be expected to identify and advance opportunities to modernize policy and analytical practices through the responsible use of emerging technologies.

Assets

• Experience supporting governance committees, portfolio management processes, transformation initiatives, or cross-functional projects.
• Experience using data, analytics, performance information, or evidence-based approaches to support policy, operational, or strategic decision-making.
• Experience supporting policy development within early learning and child care, education, health, human services, community services, or other publicly funded service delivery environments.
• Training or certification in Lean, Lean Six Sigma, Business Analysis, Continuous Improvement, Process Improvement, Project Management, Change Management, Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, or related disciplines.

Benefits

Based on the employment status and union agreement, the Government of Nova Scotia offers its employees a wide range of benefits such as a Defined Benefit Pension Plan, Health, Dental, Life Insurance, General illness, Short and Long Term Disability, Vacation and Employee and Family Assistance Programs. For information on all our Benefit program offerings, click here: Benefits for government employees.

What We Offer

• Career development where you have access to career guidance, tools, resources, and ongoing training for every stage of your career
• Engaging workplace: our employees feel valued, respected, connected, and tuned in, we have forward-thinking policies and strategies
• Countless career paths
• Department specific flexible working schedules