Stakeholder Engagement Lead, Future Farming and Countryside Programme

151634

£47,549 - £60,188

National: £47,549 - £54,728 London: £52,289 - £60,188 For details of our pay on appointment policy, please see below under the heading ‘Salary’

Permanent

DEFRA - Food Farming and Biosecurity (FFaB) - Future Farming and Countryside Programme

Policy
Project Delivery
Other

Flexible working, Full-time, Homeworking, Job share, Part-time, Compressed Hours

1

Bristol, London, York

Farming affects every one of us. From the food that we eat, to the countryside we walk in, and it’s a sector that’s going through a once in a generation change as a result of the UK’s departure from the European Union. As the sector moves away from the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy towards a wholly new approach for the agricultural industry, Defra are responsible for plotting the future and delivering one of the biggest industry changes anywhere across Government.

With work on this scale, impacting tens of thousands of farmers and landowners, it is essential that we bring stakeholders in to help us design the policies and schemes so that they provide maximum benefits for the industry, and for the environment. The Future Farming Engagement team are playing an integral part in helping to deliver that pathway to success.

In this role you will be a key member of the leadership team delivering an innovative stakeholder and user engagement strategy. You will lead a team to develop and manage key engagement mechanisms to support our commitment of open engagement. You will assume line management duties, setting direction and developing your people to build an inclusive team to improve business performance. You will ensure that the programme is developing stronger networks, improved relationships and greater connectivity with our users, stakeholders and partners.

Specific responsibilities will include (but are not limited to):

• Developing our ongoing programme of external events to engage the wider sector in the programme’s work. This includes speaker requests, farm visits, livestock markets and agricultural shows, as well as utilising existing trusted networks of the farming sector to support the changes to come
• Delivering targeted and insight-driven engagement activity for the programme, at both a strategic and tactical level, ensuring issues raised by stakeholders are considered, and outcomes fed back. This will be achieved through using multiple digital and non-digital channels to maximise our reach with farmers from different backgrounds
• To support wider colleagues across the programme to undertake policy-specific co-design and stakeholder engagement where appropriate
• Provide leadership and line management to the team of engagement professionals, by setting direction and developing your people to build an inclusive team that delivers programme objectives
• Proactively manage relationships with senior stakeholders across Defra, supporting their engagement needs and providing professional advice where required
• Be a visible and experienced leader in relation to engagement activity e.g. leading facilitation of groups and activity, presenting, engaging and speaking in public forums, and supporting media response

Responsibilities

Personal Skills and Experience:

• An engagement professional with extensive experience of establishing innovative strategy and approach and leading complex internal and external, multi-channel, stakeholder and user engagement activity

• Broad understanding of, and experience in, application of innovative engagement techniques to maximise reach and gather insight, whilst also being confident in leading more traditional methods

• Strong interpersonal, verbal and written communications skills, with an ability to negotiate, and influence others, to support policy teams to drive out clarity of policy to inform engagement activity and deliver tangible results and outcomes

• Confident in leading presentations, facilitation and public speaking in a way that facilitates honest, constructive conversations about needs and readiness within the sector, and how Defra can and is providing support

• An ability to interpret and use interdisciplinary evidence and analysis to influence and inform future strategy and approach

• You will have evidence of planning and prioritising effectively to meet deadlines, remaining calm to deliver results at pace.

• Experience of working collaboratively a senior level within a team and across programme and delivery bodies

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

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

We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:

• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together