Tree Action Plan: Delivery Management (Senior Adviser)

Do you have a passion for nature and the environment? Do you want to make a real difference and secure significant environmental gains in the present and the future? Do you enjoy working in a team? Can you see yourself advising communities and customers to maximise gains for the Natural Environment?

If this appeals to you, a career at Natural England offers rewarding opportunities to secure environmental improvements and play your part in creating a better future for people and nature.

The priority work Natural England is delivering includes:

• Establishing a Nature Recovery Network to help wildlife thrive
• Monitoring environmental changes to identify and help reduce the effects of climate change
• Working with farmers and landowners to develop greener food production methods
• Advising on plans for new developments to maximise gains for nature
• Providing ways for people to better connect with nature, including green social prescribing

We are the Government’s advisor for the natural environment, playing a vital role in delivering the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan, an ambitious vision which brings new opportunities to protect and enhance and to achieve real outcomes for the environment.

Find out more about the work of Natural England at www.gov.uk/government/organisations/natural-england

The Team

This position is hosted within NE’s National Tree Action Plan Delivery (TAP-D) team which leads on project development and provides national co-ordination to our work on specific components of the England Tree Action Plan.  The small national team, which includes technical delivery leads, works closely to support and enable the 20 TAP-D local advisers who sit within Natural England’s 12 area teams.

The national TAP-D team’s current focus in on

1. Facilitating, overseeing and reporting on delivery of a local consultation service whereby the Forestry Commission, landowners, agents and other woodland creation partners can request our advice on both site-specific woodland creation proposals and on wider strategic woodland creation initiatives.
2. Directly seeking opportunities for expanding tree cover across England

Our role is to help facilitate a quadrupling of woodland establishment rates in England to 10,000ha / year by 2025 while:

• Maximising the contribution that woodland creation makes to nature recovery
• Helping the Forestry Commission and other partners avoid detriment to existing environmental assets

Job description  

We’re looking for a person with good project management delivery experience along with the ability to directly deliver specific work packages.

You will use your knowledge and experience to manage and co-ordinate projects within the National Operations TAP-D team. This will include areas such as project planning, implementation and evaluation, delivery monitoring and reporting, risk oversight and reporting, budget management and direct delivery of a variety of work packages.

By working collaboratively and seeking feedback, you will help to identify areas for improvement to inform the work of the project going forward and share learning with other similar projects.

It will be of value if you have some knowledge of technical aspects of woodland creation and the opportunities and threats woodland creation brings to nature’s recovery, however this is not essential.

The work will be highly varied and subject to the needs of the project delivery phase.  As such the role may develop to include other operational Nature based Solution projects.

Key Tasks / Accountabilities:

• Provision of project management expertise to the National Operations Tree Action Plan Delivery (TAP-D) team
• Actively engaging with organisational standards and governance structures to manage project risks.
• Keeping track of the range of TAP-D National Operations initiatives and reporting on progress with these.
• Maintaining audit trails and undertake lessons learnt embedding them into future ways of working.
• Direct delivery of a variety of project and work packages
• Budget Management
• Liaising with the team manager on business planning and delivery management activities
• Developing monitoring and reporting tools to improve the information we produce.
• Leading on TAP-D Programme Evaluation.

Location

Flexible: This post is a national post. The post holder will be able to base themselves at any of Natural England’s current office locations.

Natural England is adopting hybrid working – which means that our staff will work from a flexible range of locations, encompassing home, offices (ours and our partners) and relevant sites. All new staff will be formally linked to one of our 25 offices across England and the expectation is that all new staff will be able to access their local office to be part of the community of staff in their geographic area. Staff members are required to carry out all their duties working in this way and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time. Travel expenses will be paid if work related travel is required but does not apply to travel between home and your associated office.

National team roles can be linked with any Natural England office while Area Team roles will be linked with an office in the relevant geographic area. View a map of our office locations here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/natural-england-office-locations

Benefits

Wherever possible Natural England accommodates requests for both full-time and part-time hours and other flexible working patterns to help employees achieve a good work/life balance and maintain their health and wellbeing.

Natural England provides excellent opportunities for career progression, training and development tailored to your role. From induction to ongoing learning and development, everyone in Natural England is supported to develop their skills and capabilities. Everyone has 10 days to devote to personal learning and development, as well as an additional 3 days to volunteer.

You will have access to Civil Service Pension and benefits arrangements and generous leave allowances (33 day per year pro rata), as well as flexible working, to help you achieve a work-life balance that works for you and us.

You will have access to a range of benefits including discounts on shopping vouchers, cycle to work scheme, and childcare vouchers. You can also join the Civil Service Sport club which offer discounts on a range of sports and leisure opportunities as well as social events.

Natural England is a fantastic place to work, where difference is celebrated.

We’re committed to fairness and equality for all, so you feel valued for who you are and what you do. Our shared values help us work together to benefit the communities we serve. Our thriving employee-led diversity networks support our inclusive culture and contribute to our Diversity Action Plan.

How to Apply

We welcome and encourage applications from all communities. Natural England is accredited to the Disability Confident Scheme, which denotes organisations which have a positive attitude towards disabled people. Disabled applicants who meet the minimum requirements for the role at the shortlisting stage are guaranteed an invitation to interview.

If you require a reasonable adjustment at interview, or there is anything else you would like the panel to take into consideration, you should notify us of this at application stage where possible, or well in advance of your interview.

This vacancy uses competency-based assessment. We'll assess you against the 4 competencies below during the selection process:

Competence 1 - Professional competency:  Work Delivery

Description:

• Manage and deliver your work to meet agreed targets and deadlines (expert)
• Handle data responsibly, understand your role in good governance, and comply with delegations, policies and procedures (practitioner)
• Understand and explain the outcomes that we seek how these fit in with local and national issues (practitioner)

Competence 2 - Professional competency:  Personal effectiveness

Description:

• Be ambitious, identify and adopt ways to make improvements in your team and Natural England and inspire others to act (practitioner)
• Share expertise and knowledge with people and networks so that you can develop together (practitioner)
• Use clear and appropriate language, communication styles and techniques that engage your audience (practitioner)

Competence 3 - Professional competency:  Putting People at the Heart of the Environment

Description: 

• Listen to and understand our diverse partners and customers so that you achieve the best outcomes for them and Natural England (practitioner)
• Nurture trusting partnerships and collaborate to achieve pragmatic outcomes that help deliver Natural England’s vision, mission and aims (practitioner)

Competence 4 - Professional competency:  Technical/specialist knowledge

• A track record in successful project management delivery, prioritisation, and simultaneous management of multiple projects (Essential). Project management qualification (for example APM, Prince2, MSP, PP3) (Desirable)
• Evidence of strong organisational skills associated with establishing record keeping systems, project delivery monitoring and reporting, project evaluation (Essential).
• A good understanding of the key environmental assets and issues that woodland creation and increased woodland cover interacts with. Understand the key opportunities and threats arising (Desirable)

When completing the application form you should present relevant examples using the STAR format. Give us an example of how you have demonstrated the competency (which can be work related or from another area of your life) and tell us about the Situation, the specific Task you had to undertake, the specific Actions you took, and the Result (both immediate and in a wider context) of your doing so.

• Examples should be given in no more than 250 words for each competency.

Attachments

Candidate Pack Natural England v1.5 Opens in new window (docx, 1319kB)

This Link takes you to the Civil Service site to apply.