Strategic Plans for Places Senior Adviser

Reference number: 237513
Salary: £32,438
Grade: Senior Executive Officer, Senior Adviser
Contract type: Permanent
Type of role: Environment and Sustainability
Working pattern: Full-time, Job share, Part-time
Number of posts: 1

The team 

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

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.

Locations

Natural England is adopting hybrid working – which means that our staff work from a flexible range of locations, encompassing home, offices (ours and our partners) and relevant sites. This role is based within the Cheshire to Lancashire Area Team. You will need to be based in the team’s geographic area. You can view a map of our office locations here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/natural-england-office-locations. All new staff will be formally linked to one of our offices with the team patch and the expectation is that all new staff will be able to access their local office to be part of the community of staff. 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.

Job description

Natural England has an important role in enabling local authorities and other plan-makers to embed nature into a range of place-based plans, and you will be central to shaping strong partnerships to drive this ambition.

This is a leading role in which you’ll work with partners to progress sustainable development and recovery of nature in England. You will use your strengths to form strong partnerships across all sectors including environment, planning, transport, health, education, economic growth and regeneration, to help shape place-based plans using different levers, but with a focus on biodiversity net gain (BNG), alongside colleagues working on strategic solutions, Green Infrastructure (GI) Standards and Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS).

This biodiversity net gain role will help Defra design and plan for the implementation of mandatory biodiversity net gain as well as helping prepare Local Authorities. You will engage locally with Local Planning Authorities to prepare for mandatory net gain, work with stakeholders to understand their existing and future skill and capacity needs to enable effective BNG delivery and collaborate, influence and build trusting relationships with partners to identify and secure strategic opportunities to deliver gains for people and nature.

You will work closely with colleagues and Local Authorities to ensure strategic solutions and appropriate policies are integrated into local plans for nature’s recovery, while working with colleagues to ensure there is policy join up across our different delivery mechanisms. You will work closely with local and national colleagues to maximise opportunities and synergies for nature and access to nature in plans and strategies.

You will need to be flexible and opportunistic in the role Natural England plays and be responsive to the needs of our local partners. It’s a fantastic opportunity to use your previous experience to bring people and nature together in an inclusive and collaborative way, to help develop strategic approaches that ensure that people from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds and diverse communities are able to experience the benefits of the natural environment.

A driving licence will be useful but is not essential. Some site visits or partnership meetings may not be easily accessible by public transport. Natural England staff have access to hire cars for work purposes.

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 competencies below during the selection process:

• Technical Skills and Knowledge
• Putting People at the Heart of the Environment
• Personal Effectiveness
• Creating Resilient Landscapes and Seas
• Work Delivery

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.

Competencies

Competence 1

Professional competency

Putting People at the Heart of the Environment

• Listen to and understand our diverse partners and customers so that you achieve the best outcomes for them and Natural England (practitioner)
• Work proactively and collaboratively with stakeholders and partners to identify and secure opportunities to deliver gains for people and nature (practitioner)

Competence 2

Professional competency

Personal Effectiveness

• Use clear and appropriate language, communication styles and techniques that engage your audience (practitioner)
• Be ambitious, identify and adopt ways to make improvements in your team and Natural England and inspire others to act (practitioner)

Competence 3

Professional competency

Creating Resilient Landscapes and Seas

• Design your local projects to have beneficial impacts at the landscape scale (expert)
• Identify and apply relevant planning and environmental legislation, policies and processes to deliver effective and proportionate evidence-based solutions and advice (practitioner)
• Identify appropriate solutions for avoidance, mitigation, compensation of environmental impacts and meeting shared outcomes; and identify opportunities for enhancing the natural environment (practitioner)

Competence 4

Professional competency

Work Delivery

• Handle data responsibly, understand your role in good governance, and comply with delegations, policies and procedures (practitioner)
• Manage and deliver your work to meet agreed targets and deadlines (expert)

Competence 5

Professional competency

Technical Skills and Knowledge:

• A relevant degree and/or extensive experience in a related field (essential)
• Knowledge of and experience of working within the statutory planning system and how nature is incorporated (essential)
• Excellent knowledge of how strategic plans can contribute to enhancing natural capital through a range of mechanisms, especially net gain and green infrastructure and the policies needed in statutory and other plans to deliver these (essential)
• Understand people’s connection with nature and how to engage people and partnerships to foster nature recovery and instill sustainability (essential)

Benefits

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

Things you need to know

Security

Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check. People working with government assets must complete basic personnel security standard checks.

Selection process details

Please refer to Job Description. Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals from the EU, EEA or Switzerland with settled or pre-settled status or who apply for either status by the deadline of the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals working in the Civil Service
• relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals who have built up the right to work in the Civil Service
• certain family members of the relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals

Further information on nationality requirements

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission’s recruitment principles.

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Apply and further information

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact

• Name: Amanda Wright
• Email: Amanda.Wright@naturalengland.org.uk
• Telephone: 07795121644

Recruitment team

• Email: defra-recruitment-enquiries@gov.sscl.com

Further information

Download the candidate pack