w4mpjobs.org is a small outfit working to a tight budget. The website is growing and more and more people are hearing about us, but that doesn’t mean that their jobs are always right for the site.

w4mpjobs.org started as a place for MPs to advertise jobs. Whilst the website has grown well beyond its original remit, we still like to judge jobs by a political yardstick: do they help people obtain the sort of experience they would need to get a job in Parliament, and/or do they help those already working in Parliament to progress their career in Parliament or elsewhere?

We interpret this quite broadly so it is perhaps easier to say which ads we DON’T accept. The following types of ads are definitely NOT suitable for w4mpjobs:

• Ads which are only open to professions where specific qualifications are required which would be better suited to specialist websites, eg law, accountancy, teaching, social work, HR etc.
• Ads for roles which are purely administrative and which have no political element (irrespective of the political nature of the organisation). The exception to this rule is roles for MPs/Peers/Political Parties which are represented in the UK parliaments or assemblies.
• Jobs aimed only at students. These are better placed elsewhere.
• Trustee positions, Chairs of committees and other committee members etc.
• Ads for organisations which don’t have a website or some other source of information. If we can’t find out any information about you, we won’t advertise you!
• Advertisements for writers or contributors to political blogs that are unpaid, or are freelance with no guaranteed income.

It is often difficult to draw the line precisely but our service is free to users and we reserve the right to reject ads which we feel don’t fit on w4mpjobs.org. This will inevitably include some great organisations whose primary aim is not political. Sorry!

Adverts paying less than national minimum wage/national living wage

We do not generally accept adverts for work that does not pay at least the current rate of national minimum wage/national living wage (see https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage).

The exceptions to this (ie, ads that pay less than national minimum wage/national living wage that we do accept) are:

• Adverts for voluntary work for charities registered with the Charity Commission. If you are a charity, you will be asked to include your registered charity number when submitting an advert. Without this, your advert will not be accepted. Please also see the information at http://www.w4mpjobs.org/  under the heading ‘Unpaid opportunities on w4mpjobs’ as we do not accept all ads for unpaid roles from charities.
• Adverts for volunteers for any of the political parties represented in the UK parliaments or assemblies – this includes voluntary work for MPs, MSPs or assembly members, local party constituency groups, local council constituency groups, prospective parliamentary/assembly candidates, prospective councillors and any other specifically party political related volunteer work.
• Adverts for all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs).
• Adverts for organisations affiliated to the main political parties for short-term voluntary help with one-off events, canvassing etc.
• Adverts for short-term voluntary help working for organisations campaigning with respect to a national referendum.

These are the only exceptions which we will make. Please do not ask us to make any others.  

Please note that from 1st April 2018 we will no longer be accepting advertisements for writers or contributors to political blogs that are unpaid, or are freelance with no guaranteed income. This is due to a substantial increase in the number of these advertisements. 

A NOTE FOR MPs: when taking on a voluntary intern you should ensure that you and the intern have agreed and signed the IPSA Model Volunteer Agreement.

Please note: we reserve the right to refuse any adverts which do not fulfil the above criteria or which, for any other reason, are deemed to be inappropriate for w4mpjobs.