APHA Change Services Director

Job summary

APHA has agreed a set of collective accountabilities for its Executive board members

As an Executive Board, you provide the collective strategic leadership that drives APHA’s performance, culture, and long-term direction. Together, you ensure the Agency operates with clarity of purpose, aligning its work with APHA’s mission, Defra’s priorities, and the wider objectives of public service.

You will play a central role in shaping and sustaining the organisation’s vision, values, and culture, supporting the Chief Executive in leading APHA with integrity, ambition, and a commitment to excellence.

You are collectively responsible for ensuring that APHA is governed effectively. This includes maintaining robust governance arrangements, enabling sound decision-making, and ensuring accountability across all areas of the organisation. You oversee the identification and management of strategic and operational risks, ensuring that statutory obligations, regulatory requirements, and internal policies are consistently met.

As stewards of public resources, you provide oversight of financial planning, budgeting, and investment decisions, ensuring that APHA delivers value for money and remains financially sustainable. You scrutinise financial performance and support the Chief Executive in maintaining strong relationships with Defra finance teams and external auditors.

You champion the development of APHA’s people and organisational capability. This includes promoting diversity and inclusion, upholding Civil Service values, and providing strategic oversight of workforce planning, talent development, and succession planning. You monitor organisational health, including staff engagement, wellbeing, and representation, ensuring APHA remains a supportive and high-performing place to work.

You represent APHA at the highest levels, engaging with Defra, other government departments, industry bodies, devolved administrations, and international partners. Through this, you help build trust, transparency, and collaboration across the wider Defra group and the sectors APHA serves.

You collectively drive organisational performance, providing constructive challenge to ensure high standards of delivery, continuous improvement, and innovation. You monitor progress against strategic objectives, KPIs, and delivery milestones, identifying where intervention or acceleration is required. You champion a culture of accountability, evidence-based decision-making, and results-driven leadership, supporting the Chief Executive in embedding performance frameworks that drive excellence across the organisation.

Above all, you act as a unified leadership body, sharing accountability for APHA’s performance and upholding the principles of public service, integrity, and impartiality. You model the highest standards of leadership and ethical conduct, ensuring APHA delivers for ministers, stakeholders, and the public.

Job description

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership

• Sets organisational strategy and provides clear strategic direction for APHA’s change and transformation portfolio, ensuring programmes are prioritised, sequenced and resourced to deliver maximum value
• Lead development of APHA’s long-term operating model, ensuring alignment to the Agency’s strategic ambitions and Defra Group objectives
• Act as a key adviser to the CEO, Directors and Defra Group partners on transformation, organisational change, and major delivery risks

Portfolio & Programme Leadership

• Own and lead the APHA change and transformation portfolio, ensuring coherent delivery across all change activity. Oversee and assure all major programmes including:
• EU Reset Programme – ensuring APHA systems, processes and capability meet new regulatory and trading requirements
• APHA Synergy – driving cross-Agency, cross-functional alignment, enhanced data integration, and streamlined operations
• Delivering Sustainable Futures Programme – ensuring APHA is future-ready, digitally enabled, financially sustainable and resilient
• APHA Change Projects – from people change to digital modernisation.
• Ensure programmes deliver intended benefits, secure value for money, and operate within agreed cost, time and quality tolerances
• Sponsor and chair governance boards, ensuring compliance with Defra, CO and HM Treasury standards (including GMPP where required)

Capability & Leadership of Project Delivery and Change

• Lead and develop APHA’s project, programme and change professions, including PMO, portfolio management, business change and transformation specialists
• Drive professional capability uplift aligned to the Government Project Delivery Framework and OPD standards
• Ensure robust assurance, risk management and delivery methodologies are embedded consistently

Person specification

The successful candidate will be able to demonstrate the following:

Essential Criteria:

1. Extensive experience of leading large‑scale change and transformation portfolioswithin complex, operational or regulated organisations, delivering clear strategic outcomes and benefits.
2. Strong track record of delivering organisational, digital and/or process change at scale, translating strategy into improved performance, resilience and ways of working.
3. Significant experience of developing and leading an organisation‑wide coaching and continuous improvement culture, building leadership capability and sustainable change capacity.
4. Proven leadership of Project Delivery, Programme and Change professionals, including the development of high‑performing, multi‑disciplinary and geographically dispersed teams.
5. Highly developed strategic thinking, influencing and problem‑solving skills, with the ability to operate credibly at Executive and Board level and shape complex decision‑making.
6. Strong financial, commercial and risk management capability, alongside the ability to build trusted partnerships with senior stakeholders across multiple organisations.

Behaviours

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Making Effective Decisions
• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £81,000, Animal and Plant Health Agency contributes £23,465 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 employer contribution of 28.97%

Office Attendance

The agreed amount of time spent at a workplace for this post will reflect the requirement for Civil Servants to spend at least 60% of their working time in an organisation workplace with the option to work the remaining time flexibly from home. Working time spent at a workplace may include time spent at other organisational locations including field-based operational locations, together with supplier, customer or partner locations. This is a non-contractual agreement which is consistent with common Civil Service expectations.

Defra includes the core department, APHA, RPA, Cefas and VMD.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

This vacancy is using Success Profiles and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

You will be assessed on the following behaviours throughout the selection process:

• Seeing the big picture
• Making effective decisions
• Leadership
• Communicating and influencing

Briefing call
During the application process you will have an opportunity to join a candidate information session. This briefing session will provide a chance for you to learn more about the role and ask any questions. The call will take place on 15th April 2026 at 9am and a recording will be made available for anyone unable to attend.

Please join using the : MEETING LINK

Application Process

As part of the application process, candidates are asked to complete a CV and Personal Statement (no more than 1250 words) on how your relevant skills and experience meet the essential criteria. Completed applications must be submitted no later than 23:55pm 22nd April 2026

Sift

A sift will be conducted against the key criteria in the essential criteria and will assess your experience. Applications will be assessed by the selection panel and shortlisted.

Staff Engagement Exercise

These assessments will not result in a pass or fail decision. Rather, it is designed to support the panel’s decision making and highlight areas for the panel to explore further at interview.

Full details of the assessment process will be provided to shortlisted candidates at the earliest opportunity.

For further information regarding the assessments please visit:

https://scs-assessments.co.uk/

Interviews
You will be asked to attend a panel interview, in order to have a more in-depth discussion of your previous experience and professional competence in relation to the essential criteria for the role.

As part of the interview, we may ask you to prepare and present a short presentation This will be confirmed in the interview invitation.

Interviews will be in person at Weybridge.

Other Information
Please let us know what adjustments we can put in place to help you through the recruitment process if you are disabled.

Candidates who pass the interview criteria but are not offered a post may be kept on a reserve list for 12 months and may be offered similar roles across the department.

Defra is committed to ‘name blind’ sifting. That means that identifying characteristics such as your name, gender, age, or address are removed from your application until after shortlisting for interview has taken place.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) 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 (opens in a new window).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.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.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.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : SCS Recruitment
• Email : scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles, and you wish to make a complaint, you should contact scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk in the first instance. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission: Visit the Civil Service Commission website: https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk

Attachments

Change services Director Candidate Information Pack Opens in new window (pdf, 2180kB)452638- Accessibility Pack Opens in new window (docx, 2656kB)