Marine Infrastructure Principal Advisor (Ref: 5255)

East Midlands (England), East of England, London (region), North East England, North West England, South East England, South West England, West Midlands (England), Yorkshire and the Humber

This is a National Role

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, and
• Providing ways for people to better connect with nature, including green social prescribing. 

We are the Government’s Adviser 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

Strategy & Government Advice (S&GA) comprises a number of Programme-facing and cross-cutting teams. The role is based within Natural England’s Planning and Infrastructure Team in S&GA. It offers an opportunity to deliver ambitious conservation outcomes and be at the heart of Natural England’s-response to a changing planning system.

The Strategy & Government Advice Team supports Natural England’s aims by:

• providing advice, support and delivery of work for the four programmes
• advising Government on the development of its environmental policy relevant to our remit
• developing and delivering new programmes and pilots for the government to support major strategies such as the 25-Year Plan
• leading stakeholder relationships with key national-level partners
• developing internal standards and guidance on novel issues

The Role

The British Energy Security Strategy has committed to delivering 40GW of offshore wind by 2030 as well as the rapid deployment of carbon capture and hydrogen production.  Even with the UK as a world leader in the delivery of offshore wind projects this ambitious target amounts to one turbine installed every day for a decade.  Also new technologies such as floating turbines and new methods of energy production and storage will present new challenges for the marine environment.  Helping to ensure a ‘low carbon, high nature’ future makes this a dynamic and fulfilling area to work. 

This exciting role will form part of a team of Principal Advisers and Specialists in the Planning and Infrastructure Team within Strategy and Government Advice.  The postholder will provide key technical leadership on marine major casework covering issues such as compensation for habitat regulations, bird displacement collision, benthic and marine process impacts and noise.  Working with and across operations teams you will ensure consistency in high-risk handling, encouraging and facilitating the adoption of novel or pragmatic approaches where appropriate. The postholder will maintain a national overview of key risks and challenges and will work closely with other staff across the organisation to increase capacity and capability in complex case handling.  You will also have a key role engaging with key stakeholders both across Government and in Industry to ensure solutions are joined up and forward looking as we move to increasingly shared space at sea.

Key Tasks/Principal Accountabilities. Specifically, this role will:

• Oversee and where appropriate lead on key issues arising for the natural environment from marine licensing and planning operations, principally Offshore Infrastructure
• • Form strong links with relevant Principal Advisers across NE. Ensure that we are consistent in our engagement with Nationally Significant Infrastructure Protects (NSIPs), that we apply consistent analysis and reasoning to cases in relation to different sectors, and that we identify and address underpinning strategic issues to enable sound case handling.
  • Provide advice/expertise and quality assurance on high-risk cross cutting issues alongside lead advisers and specialists, weighing up inputs of others and translating highly technical advice into pragmatic solutions to resolve issues.
  • Undertake advocacy role at Issue Specific Hearings on high risk- cross cutting matters where required.
  • Support National Operations and Area Teams in forward planning for known NSIPs, and other significant infrastructure casework.
• Manage high-risk and cross cutting issues. Ensure function & organisation-wide consistency in managing high risk, customers and stakeholders.
• • Maintain a common risk management framework and support teams to plan for effective case management.
  • Lead in consistent identification and escalation of high-risk and cross cutting technical issues in relation to marine infrastructure casework, ensuring effective plans are maintained for all high-risk cases, supporting lead staff where appropriate and making good use of the High Risk Casework Panel.
  • Work with all stakeholders to resolve issues and mitigate risks to the environment and to Natural England’s reputation.
• Capacity building. Ensure close working relationships within and across teams to build efficiencies to improve delivery of high-risk casework. Influence the working cultures of our operational teams to build capability & support succession planning – empowering and enabling them, building confidence and encouraging appropriate risk-taking:
• • Build partnerships with functional and organisational specialists and work stream leads to ensure effective transition from strategy to delivery.
  • Communicate effectively with area managers to agree approaches and share intelligence on key themes with cross-team impacts.
  • Support the development of staff through technical input to the Offshore Wind Network and Offshore Wind Delivery Group, sharing learning from case handling and demonstrating Natural England’s role in enabling solutions and realising sustainable development.

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 our staff 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 geographical area. Full time staff are expected to attend their associated office for a minimum of one day a week. 
 
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.

Pay

It is Natural England policy to employ at the entry point of the salary range. 

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.
• Leading and Managing People.
• Creating Resilient Landscapes and Seas.
• Personal Effectiveness

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.

Please note that STAR format is not required when answering the Technical Skills & Knowledge competency.

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

Competencies

Competence 1  

Professional competency

Technical

Relevant degree and/or extensive experience in a related field. (Essential)

Substantial technical expertise and applied experience of:

• The application of environmental assessment processes to planning casework (Marine Conservation Zones (MCZ) Assessment and Habitats Regulation assessment (HRA), Environmental Impact assessment (EIA), Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) (Essential)
• Marine licensing and consenting, including Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) (Essential)
• Broad understanding of the marine and coastal environment and how it may be impacted through marine infrastructure development and ability to apply ecological principles to develop solutions to complex casework and issues (Essential)
• Detailed understanding of impacts to marine mammals through marine developments and how they can be mitigated (Desirable)

Competence 2  

Professional competency

Leadership

• Encourage, inspire and support people to be ambitious, creative and innovative, and to reflect, celebrate and learn lessons from their work (Practitioner)
• See the big picture so you can set your team’s work within the context of the organisation’s vision, mission and aims, and help them understand how their work relates to and supports this (Expert).

Competence 3  

Professional competency

Creating resilient Landscapes and Seas

• Identify and apply relevant planning and environmental legislation, policies, and processes to deliver effective and proportionate evidence-based solutions and advice (Expert).
• Identify appropriate solutions for avoidance, mitigation, compensation of environmental impacts and meeting shared outcomes; and identify opportunities for enhancing the natural environment (Expert).

Competence 4  

Professional competency

Personal effectiveness

• Make and explain objective decisions which combine your professional judgement and evidence (Expert).
• Test and challenge others in a constructive and evidence-based way providing scientific scrutiny, challenge and assurance to casework and other delivery that is practical and, where appropriate, cross-disciplinary. (Expert)
• Share expertise and knowledge with people and networks so that you can develop together (Expert)

Please refer to Job Description

• 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%

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).

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

Job contact :

• Name : Alexandra Southcott
• Email : alex.southcott@naturalengland.org.uk
• Telephone : 07788185648

Recruitment team

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