Stakeholder Engagement and Communications Lead – Tests and Trials

144841

£35,895 - £43,847

National: £35,895 - £40,613 London £38,751 - £43,847

Permanent

Defra - Future Farming and Countryside Programme Tests and Trials

Policy
Project Delivery

Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time

1

Bristol, South West, BS1 5AH, Newcastle upon Tyne, North East, NE4 7YJ, City of Westminster, London, SW1P 4DF, York, Yorkshire and the Humber, YO1 7PX.

Are you an enthusiastic communications specialist? Do you care passionately about the future of farming and the countryside? If so, this could be the new role for you.

In Defra, we deal with a vast range of issues that profoundly impact people’s lives. We are responsible for England’s environment, our countryside and rural economy, the food and farming sectors and have lead responsibility for protecting the UK from a wide range of natural threats and hazards. The role is an exciting opportunity to play a critical part in developing the cornerstone of the government’s 25YEP, the new schemes that reward environmental land management.

The Future Farming and Countryside Programme (FFCP) directorate was set up to deliver a brighter future for farming following our exit from the European Union. The programme aims to improve the quality of farming and the economic performance of the sector, while delivering on the environmental goals set out in the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan.

Our new schemes for rewarding environmental land management are a core part of FFCP. The role out of our new schemes will begin in 2022 with the launch of the Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme and will be followed by the Local Nature Recovery and Landscape Recovery schemes by 2024. These schemes will pay farmers and land managers for providing environmental benefits such as clean air, clean water and thriving plants and wildlife. The environmental land management programme is responsible for designing and delivering these schemes, including building our evidence base through tests and trials and the Pilots, and ensuring we have the right policy and delivery approach to achieve our objectives

The Tests and Trials team is innovative in that we’re enabling participants to shape much of the direction and content of the new schemes. We began Tests and Trials in 2018 as a vehicle to engage with a wide range of farmers, land managers and stakeholders to harness their ideas to conduct research to contribute to the design of the new schemes. Farmers and land managers taking part in the tests and trials co-design elements or building blocks of the new schemes in their working environments. We use the evidence and learning they generate to help shape and inform scheme design.

Tests and trials are a safe space to fail, learn and improve. They allow us to explore innovative ideas and compare approaches to understand if and how they could be used within the new schemes.

As the Stakeholder Engagement and Communications Lead you maintain strategic oversight of our engagement activities with internal and external stakeholders. These activities range from coordinating workshops with test and trial participants, to engaging with policy teams on the latest learning from tests and trials. Also, you will use your excellent written communication skills to produce high-quality documents in a range styles, from ministerial briefings and policy papers, to engaging blog posts. Most importantly, you will manage the core plans and documents that underpin our engagement and communications activities to ensure that tests and trials can provide insights for scheme design in the right format, at the right time.

It is likely that you will manage a team of Higher Executive Test and Trial Officers. You will report to a Grade 7 or Grade 6 as part of a wider, collaborative and supportive team of 20+ people working to drive strategies and policies forward.

Responsibilities

Key Responsibilities:

• Maintain and review the stakeholder engagement strategy and plan for Tests and Trials, working closely with other engagement and communications teams. This sets out the different mechanisms and channels we will use to engage with stakeholders, including:
• Continue to publish regular reports to update external stakeholder on progress, extent of the findings to date and show how policy teams have used these to help shape the design and delivery of the new schemes.
• Continue to publish monthly blogs on the FFCP channel to provide regular updates on progress with tests and trials and how product service teams have used the evidence to inform the policy and delivery framework.
• Lead on implementation of activities detailed in the plan, for example, through coordination of workshops and evidence dissemination events.
• Build effective relationships across a wide range of teams and delivery partner colleagues.
• Provide strategic join up across environmental scheme policy.
• Monitoring media and stakeholder activity to identify key influencers.
• Prepare regular update reports for the tests and trials project board
• Lead on drafting advice for Ministers, coordinating responses to questions or issues and updates and briefings for senior managers.
• Provide support to senior colleagues, taking the lead on specific work assignments.
• Collate and disseminate evidence from tests and trials through reporting
• Collate and disseminate the findings of tests and trials by theme and scheme (covering each product service), extend the range and coverage of tests and trials in line with the design and delivery needs of the product service teams.

Experience:

We are looking for a candidate with experience of planning and implementing strategic communication and engagement plans. You will have excellent written and verbal communication skills and the ability to adapt tone and style to a range of audiences. You will have the capacity to think strategically and creatively, driving forward our engagement and communications on the findings and scope of tests and trials. You will be able to assimilate and coherently summarise a broad range of information to develop an effective structure and framework of evidence. You will also need to be able to visualise and translate the evidence into practice by ensuring policy colleagues are given the appropriate information to operate effectively.

In light of COVID19 pressures, you will need to work flexibly, using your initiative to respond to a range of complex situations. You will use your excellent verbal and written communication skills to motivate and give direction to your teams. You will take charge of issues and be highly driven, taking into consideration individual needs to act together to achieve a shared goal. You will enjoy working collaboratively and be able to bring a fresh perspective whilst considering other people’s views.

A confident communicator, you will have proven ability to engage a range of partners and stakeholders and colleagues across Government and beyond. We are looking for exceptional individuals with a combination of policy and project delivery capabilities and experience to ensure the delivery of the Tests and Trials. This is an exciting opportunity to join a fast-moving team in an important area for Defra.

We expect the successful candidate to meet the following essential experience criteria:

• Excellent people skills and enjoy working with others
• Proven ability to rapidly develop and present high-quality materials and documents, assimilating and summarising a broad range of evidence from different sources in a clear, legible and coherent way.
• Experience of communicating confidently and concisely. Effectively communicating with a wide range of stakeholders (at all levels)
• Experience of planning and prioritising your workload in a changing and challenging landscape.
• Experience of managing others, using leadership skills to achieve desired outcomes in an ambiguous environment.
• A proven track record of delivery, working at pace working at pace to react in a fast-paced moving environment.
• It would be a strong advantage if you could also demonstrate experience of project management skills.

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Communicating and Influencing
• Delivering at Pace
• Working Together
• Seeing the Big Picture

Pension
Your pension is a valuable part of your total reward package and you will be given the chance to join one of two schemes.
Alpha is a (DB) Defined Benefit pension scheme based on your careers average earnings.
As a member you accrue 2.32% of your earnings each month towards your pension pot, which is revalued in April each year to retain its value relative inflation.
Partnership is a (DC) Defined Contribution pension scheme.
As a member of Partnership you receive a ‘free pension’ meaning a scheme in which you do not have to contribute. We will contribute to your pension based on your age bracket. More information is available here.
However, if you do chose to make a contribution towards your pot, we will match your contribution up to an additional 3%.
Life assurance Your pension will continue to provide valuable benefits for you and your family if you are too ill to continue to work or die before you retire.

Generous Annual Leave and Bank Holiday Allowance:
Annual Leave We offer 25 days annual leave (rising, over 5 years, to 30 days) for full time new entrants to the Civil Service and those Civil Servants on modernised terms and conditions. Existing Civil Servants on pre-modernised terms will retain these.

Bank Holiday You receive 8 public holidays a year together with an additional day in May to mark the Queen’s Birthday.

Staff Bonuses and Staff Recognition
We offer you the opportunity to be recognised for your work through and end of year Performance Award.
We also have a Staff Recognition Scheme, and in-year awards to reward exemplary work.

Bicycle Loan
We offer interest-free loans towards the cost of a bike and a Cycle to Work Scheme. This means we loan you a bike for your commute as a tax-free benefit. At the end of the loan period you have the option to buy the bike, saving 30% of the original cost

Season Ticket Loan
We offer interest-free season ticket loans, to you when you have more than three months’ service so that you have some help with the cost of purchasing train and bus season tickets and as well as station car parking

Employee Discounts
You will have access to our discount scheme which offers savings at hundreds of top retailers.

Give as You Earn
We are registered with the Give as You Earn scheme which enables you to make regular deductions directly from your salary in support of a chosen charity. This is simple and tax efficient.

Learning and Development
Everyone is supported to develop their skills and capabilities.
Civil Servants are encouraged to have a minimum of five days of learning and development each year. We believe that you should have access to a range of learning and development opportunities to support you in your current and future roles. You will have accountability for your own learning as we encourage you to be an independent and motivated learner.

Induction : All new employees will have a corporate induction. This will help you to find out exactly what it means to be a civil servant and what is expected of you. Throughout the induction journey you will find out what we do, how we do it, and what our relationships are with the people we serve. In addition, all new and returning employees will also receive a departmental induction. This will help you to establish good working relationships with other staff members and to understand your role and how you can integrate and fit into the organization.

Civil Service Learning : We offer access to learning and development with world class providers through Civil Service Learning (CSL). CSL’s comprehensive curriculum offers a mix of different types of learning so that civil servants can learn in a way that works for them. The curriculum provides learning opportunities that cater for civil servants with opportunities that cover leadership and management, diversity and inclusion, personal effectiveness, working essentials plus professional development.

Civil Service Professions and Academies :There are over 30 cross-government professions that support civil servants to deliver a world-class professional service. We encourage you to join a civil service profession and access the learning opportunities, standards, behaviours and other helpful information that will help you with your career.

Mentoring and Coaching : Mentoring is an effective means of developing your career, boosting your confidence and empowering both the mentor and mentee. You will have the opportunity to voluntarily engage and work confidentially with a mentor or coach. We are also able to provide accredited external coaches on a case by case basis.

Apprenticeships : Some employees will find themselves able to convert onto an apprenticeship programme to gain nationally recognised qualifications through a programme of training and work experience.

Other types of development :
Formal training can be supplemented by other development opportunities such as on-the-job development, job-shadowing, ted-talks or working with different project teams to your own.

Talent : We have a number of talent management schemes that aim to develop talented and high performing staff from all backgrounds.

Study Leave : To support educational, vocational or professional study activities you may apply for study leave.

Staff Wellbeing:
We have various measures in place to assist with your physical and emotional health.
Flexible working to allow for variations in your hours from day to day, suiting your needs, and where this is compatible with business needs. There is further scope to work from home, compressed hours and more.

The Mental Health Network is an employee-led network which offers support, information and raises awareness of mental health issues.

Employee Assistance Programme is a free and confidential 24/7 telephone advice service available to our staff.
Our Occupational Health Service (OHS) provides a range of support services to help with the way you feel at work.

Other Benefits Include:
Volunteering Each year you will be entitled to three 3 days special leave with pay to volunteer. We encourage you to take up this offer as volunteering can be a great way to share skills with worthy charitable causes, while developing new insights and stronger links with the civil society sector.

Reservists We fully support reservists and offer 15 days paid special leave for training.

Civil Service Sports Council The CSSC organises a wide choice of activities throughout the UK, from art, gliding, abseiling and orienteering to cabaret weekends and quiz and curry nights. Members also gain access to hundreds of national and local offers, including free entry for you, one other adult and up to 6 children at English Heritage and Cadw sites and free entry for you and up to 3 children at RBG Kew. There are also savings at many high street stores, cinemas, restaurants and historic houses. Further information is available at the CSSC website.