Higher Officer: Marine Major Casework - ( Ref : 6823 )

Job summary

This position is based at Tyneside House, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Job description

Join us in shaping a future where nature and people thrive. Whether you're drawn to hands-on conservation or playing a vital part behind the scenes, your work at Natural England will support lasting benefits for the environment and society.

Our Role

Natural England is the Government’s adviser for the natural environment and the Nature regulator with a wide range of statutory duties and powers. We provide the evidence, expertise and advice to recover Nature and shape better places for people to live. We do this working through and with others.

Strategic Outcomes for Nature

Our strategy is framed through four strategic outcomes. Each of these outcomes reinforces and amplifies the others, and together they address environmental, social and economic actions critical to thriving nature.

• Recovering Nature – Increased scale and quality of places where nature thrives.
• Building Better Places – Greener homes and infrastructure create healthier, more investable places, recognising we live better where nature thrives around us.
• Improving Health and Wellbeing – Build nature into everyday life so people can support, access and benefit from nature, wherever they live.
• Delivering Security through Nature – Nature helps us adapt to the threats of a changing climate and improves our national security, supporting more resilient food production, healthy soils, clean and plentiful water and clean air.

Find out more about the work of Natural England at

Natural England’s Strategy: Recovering Nature for Growth, Health and Security - GOV.UK

Benefits

At Natural England, we support a healthy work-life balance by offering full-time, part-time, and flexible working arrangements.

We provide excellent opportunities for career progression, training, and development tailored to your role. This includes ten days annually for personal learning and development, plus three additional days for volunteering.

You’ll receive a generous leave allowance of 33 days per year (pro rata), access to the Civil Service Pension scheme with a 28.97% employer contribution, and a range of benefits such as shopping discounts and a cycle-to-work scheme. Staff can also join the Civil Service Sport club for discounts on sports, leisure activities, and social events.

We are committed to fairness, equality, and inclusivity. Our employee-led diversity networks help foster a welcoming environment where everyone feels valued and supported.

Locations

Natural England has adopted 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. Staff are expected to attend their associated office for 20% of their contractual hours.

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.

This role will be based in the Northumbria Area Team, and it would be beneficial to have a working knowledge of the North East coast.

Job description

The Role

This is an Operational Higher Officer role delivering and supporting Natural England’s statutory and discretionary advice on major casework and Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) with combined marine and terrestrial elements. The role holder will understand marine planning, licensing and consenting and NE’s role in the NSIP process, and will ideally have experience of working on marine NSIPs. They will provide support to the Northumbria Area Team and Northern North Seas Team responding to statutory and non-statutory consultations. This role will contribute to the production of condition assessment and formal conservation advice packages for our Marine Protected Area (MPA) network.

Key Tasks/Principal Accountabilities

The successful candidate will:

• Work closely with their Senior Responsible Officer to develop and deliver Natural England advice on major casework and NSIPs with a marine component, including but not limited to offshore wind.
• Review and advise on Environmental Impacts Assessments, Habitat Regulations Assessments (including technical supporting information); working with developers to ensure environmental impacts of developments have been fully addressed in order to achieve the best outcomes for the natural environment.
• Provide statutory advice to competent authorities within specified statutory timeframes.
• Respond to post-consent consultations on discharge of Development Consent Order and Marine Licence conditions.
• Provide advice to developers to inform survey and monitoring plans & reports through Natural England’s Discretionary Advice Service (DAS).
• Provide chargeable advice through Natural England’s DAS, to maximise early engagement opportunities to achieve better outcomes for the natural environment.
• Identify any risks associated with the delivery of this work and ensure they are escalated appropriately.
• Support collaborative working between terrestrial and marine colleagues in the Project Teams you support, sharing learning and identifying opportunities for continuous improvement.
• Participate in relevant internal technical networks, showing leadership & sharing best practice with others to support development of strategic approaches to challenges, and promote skills development across the wider team.
• Identify and complete priority marine monitoring (may include field work) and carry out condition assessments.
• Contribute to Conservation Advice as part of our statutory duty and to provide advice on Marine Protected Areas.

Competencies

Competence 1

Professional competency

Detail

Technical Skills and Knowledge

Description

• Degree or equivalent qualification and relevant experience (Essential).
  • Detailed knowledge of marine ecology, marine processes and an understanding of the marine biodiversity in UK waters (specifically North Sea) (Essential).
  • Knowledge of the main challenges in delivering sustainable development advice in the marine/coastal habitats of the UK marine environment (Desirable).

Competence 2

Professional competency

Detail

Work Delivery

• Manage and deliver your work to meet agreed targets and deadlines (Practitioner).
• Apply the relevant methodologies and tools for collecting and collating data / evidence including metadata (Practitioner).

Description

Work Delivery

• Manage and deliver your work to meet agreed targets and deadlines (Practitioner).
• Apply the relevant methodologies and tools for collecting and collating data / evidence including metadata (Practitioner).

Competence 3

Professional competency

Detail

Personal Effectiveness

Description

Share expertise and knowledge with people and networks so that you can develop together (Basic).
• Use clear and appropriate language, communication styles and techniques that engage and influence your audience (Basic).
• Be ambitious, identify and adopt ways to make improvements in your team and your organisation and inspire others to act (Practitioner).
• Make and explain objective decisions which combine your professional judgement and evidence (Practitioner).

Competence 4

Professional competency

Detail

Putting People at the Heart of the Environment

Description

• Nurture trusting partnerships and collaborate to achieve pragmatic outcomes that help deliver the organisation’s vision, mission and aims (Practitioner).
  • Listen to and understand our diverse partners and customers so that you achieve the best outcomes for them and the organisation you represent (Practitioner).

Competence 5

Professional competency

Detail

Creating Resilient Landscapes & Seas

Description

• Use and contribute to the evidence base on environmental and landscape change to support resilient landscapes and seascapes (Practitioner).
  • Identify and apply relevant planning and environmental legislation, policies and processes to deliver effective and proportionate evidence-based solutions and advice (Practitioner).
  • Identify appropriate solutions for avoidance, mitigation, compensation of environmental impacts and meeting shared outcomes; and identify opportunities for enhancing the natural environment (Practitioner).
  • Provide advice on the need for, and scope of, environmental assessments (e.g. Environmental Impact assessment (EIA), Habitats Regulations assessment (HRA) (Practitioner).

Person specification

Please refer to Job Description

Licences

Driving Licence

Qualifications

Relevant degree or equivalent

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £33,780, Natural England contributes £9,786 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

• 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%

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

Please refer to Job Description

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) criminal record check.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.

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

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 : Michael Miller
• Email : michael.miller@naturalengland.org.uk
• Telephone : 0208 2256263

Recruitment team

• Email : defra-recruitment-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.uk

Further information

https://networkrecruitment.tal.net/vx/appcentre-7/brand-4/spa-1/candidate/so/pm/1/pl/8/opp/6823-6823-Higher-Officer-Marine-Major-Casework/en-GB

Attachments

DEF-001h - Candidate Pack Natural England v3.1 Opens in new window (docx, 550kB)