Deputy Director Terrestrial Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment Programme (Ref: 5613)

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 position is based Nationally

Evidence Directorate provides leadership and evidence services to enable Natural England to operate as an evidence-led organisation. We set the strategic direction for science and evidence and support this with a programme of cross-cutting work. We collect, analyse and synthesise evidence for nature’s recovery. We aim to ensure that the evidence Natural England uses is high quality, understood and trusted to make the right decisions for nature’s recovery. We work with the Science and Analysis Directorates as part of the Chief Scientist’s Directorate.

 Natural Capital & Ecosystem Assessment

The NCEA is a transformative programme to understand the extent, condition and change over time of natural capital assets and ecosystems across England’s land and water environments. It supports the Government’s ambition to improve the environment within a generation. Data will come from Earth Observation, professional field data collection, citizen science and partner data sets.

The 2021 Spending Review provided £140m of funding to Defra for the NCEA over the 3 years from 2022/23 to 2024/25. Natural England is playing a major role in delivering this programme.

Natural England’s terrestrial NCEA (NCEA) programme is organised into 6 projects:

1. Mapping and Earth Observation – Spatial data and maps on natural capital to inform national and local decision making and delivery.
2. England Peat Map – Mapping the extent and condition of England’s peatlands.
3. Field data collection – Data on habitats, soils, landscapes and species to understand the condition of natural capital assets. Delivery of the England Ecosystem Survey.
4. Citizen science – Working with citizens and community science to fill gaps, provide local and landscape scale information and engaging the public.
5. Data mobilisation, integration and reporting – Making NCEA, partner and volunteer data more accessible and producing high quality evidence products by analysing and integrating NCEA data.
6. Programme management – Managing Natural England’s NCEA programme.

The role

You will provide leadership for our terrestrial NCEA programme within Natural England and with partners. You will provide strategic leadership for the Natural England programme, set direction and oversee effective delivery of the programme. 

You will combine technical expertise with programme and people management skills to shape and drive our work. You will lead Natural England’s engagement with Defra, Defra Group NCEA partners, external stakeholders and customers.

Within Natural England you will engage with Natural England’s strategic programmes, national and Area teams to ensure that the NCEA contributes to meeting Natural England’s business and evidence needs.

You will be an active member of the Chief Scientist’s Directorate Senior Leadership Team working with other Deputy Directors, Directors and Managers on the development and governance of the team.

The role requires significant people management and team development experience, organisational leadership and the ability to deliver a large scale, diverse £multi-million programme.

Responsibilities and accountabilities

The post holder will be based in the Evidence Team of our Chief Scientist’s Directorate; you will be responsible for:

Strategic thinking and programme management

• Strategic leadership of NE’s delivery of the terrestrial NCEA programme working with and leading a team of Principal Advisers who lead each of the 6 projects, and managers who lead dispersed teams. Set long-term ambition and medium-term objectives.
• Ensure that projects and plans deliver data and products that meet the overall objectives of the tNCEA, are delivered efficiently with integration across projects, fit within NCEA technical and scientific frameworks, and make a significant contribution to Natural England’s evidence needs.
• Ensure the effective deployment (and management) of budgets and staff resources so that tNCEA delivery is well managed, priorities are clear; and, Defra and NE finance, planning, project management and reporting requirements are met. This includes readiness for NE Business Planning, NE Committees, responding to external audits and risk management.
• Deal with complex problems and issues, and resolve them using significant levels of judgement, and identify innovative solutions.

• Ensure the good governance of the programme within Natural England and contribute to the NE Programme Board. Provide for briefings to Director of Evidence and SRO (Ruth Waters). Brief NE’s Chief Scientist Tim Hill for Defra Group tNCEA Programme Board and provide briefings for other ad hoc meetings.

People leadership

• Provide direct line management to Managers and some Principal Advisers. Develop the capacity and capabilities of NE’s NCEA team through recruitment, working with partners, coaching, learning and development of staff to deliver their objectives and achieve their longer-term potential.

Relationships and influencing

• Lead NE’s strategic engagement with Defra and the Defra Group organisations that are delivering the NCEA programme. Ensure good relations with NCEA partners and Defra programme. Represent NE at the Defra tNCEA Partner Working Group and deputise at Defra Programme Board when required. Ensure that NE plays a full role in and influences NCEA working groups. Oversee and, when appropriate, lead NE’s engagement with key external stakeholders.
• Develop strong partnerships internally with NE’s 6 strategic portfolios including the Science and Evidence portfolio, marine NCEA, CSD colleagues, national and Area teams. Ensure the clear communication of the NCEA purpose, projects and outputs.

Impact

• Ensure that the NCEA develops products that meet customer needs, communicates these effectively and maximises their impact to improve decision making.

Work with the senior leadership team in CSD to embed our Science, Evidence & Evaluation Strategy strengthening the role of science and evidence within Natural England and ensure that NCEA is integrated into NE’s Science and Evidence 

Competencies

Competence 1 Professional competency

Detail 

Technical skills and knowledge

Description 

• Excellent track record of strategic delivery leadership, especially of managing high profile, complex environmental programmes (essential).
• Excellent people management, team building and leadership skills (essential).
• Excellent project management expertise (essential)
• Excellent communication skills (essential).
• Track record of stakeholder engagement and developing collaborative partnerships (essential).
• Knowledge and experience of driving the necessary cultural change around reform and innovation (essential).
• Good understanding of evidence and science processes and activities (desirable).
• Knowledge and experience of natural capital and ecosystem monitoring and assessment (desirable)
• Budget and procurement management expertise (desirable).

Competence 2 Professional competency

Detail 

Leading and managing people (expert)

Description 

• Lead an inclusive and trusting team that positively safeguards team members’ physical and mental wellbeing.
• Inspire and support people to be ambitious, creative and innovative, and to reflect, celebrate and learn lessons from their work.
• Set clear plans and expectations for your team, explain reasons behind decisions, be clear on the outcomes to be achieved, and make things happen by sharing and delegating work to the right people.
• Lead co-creation internally and with external partners to drive creative and innovative new solutions and ways of working and describe and embed these in change programmes.

Competence 3 Professional competency

Detail 

Work Delivery (Expert)

Description 

• 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.
• Use strategic understanding to review priorities, identify development needs and longer-term ambition.
• Identify priority evidence needs and seek ways to meet them (e.g. through funding or partnerships)
• Understand evaluation and apply it at an appropriate scale to identify the impact of our evidence or interventions and opportunities for improvement.

Competence 4 Professional competency

Detail 

Putting people at the heart (expert)

Description 

• Identify and build sustained long term, productive relationships, and work proactively and collaboratively internally, with senior stakeholders and partners to shape the policy agenda, build alignment and find innovative solutions.
• Listen to and understand our diverse partners and customers, and spot opportunities for influencing to achieve better environmental outcomes.

Competence 5 Professional competency

Detail 

Personal effectiveness – communication (expert)

Description 

• Steer the development of and oversee delivery of an effective communications and stakeholder engagement plan, including digital. Lead external and internal communications (e.g. Board papers, presentations to external audiences) in a variety of settings.
• Proactively communicate and advocate for the NCEA programme and NE aims internally and externally to deliver positive outcomes for the environment.

Please refer to Job Description

Alongside your salary of £56,100, Natural England contributes
£15,651 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.

Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• 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 : Andy Nisbet
• Email : Andy.Nisbet@naturalengland.org.uk
• Telephone : 07876790269

Recruitment team

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