Relationship Manager – National Food Crime Unit

Job summary

Do you love public speaking and ensuring your audience can understand your message?

Do you enjoy building trusting relationships with stakeholders?

Do you have excellent drafting and written skills and the ability to articulate and present to a wide range of audiences?

Are you ready for a new challenge in an organisation making a difference to everyone’s lives?

If the answer is yes – come and join us in the Food Standards Agency’s National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) as a Relationship Manager!

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is a non-ministerial department of over 1600 people. We play a critical role in protecting public health and consumers’ wider interests in food across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Our vision is an important one - to drive change, delivering “food we can trust” and working towards a healthier and more sustainable food system.

The NFCU is part of the FSA’s Operations Directorate and provides a law enforcement capability responsible for ensuring that the food crime threat is understood and responded to in the most effective way both nationally and internationally. We aim to make the UK as hostile environment as possible for those seeking to involve themselves in food crime. We seek to identify, disrupt and deter those involved in serious criminality by working with a range of key internal and external stakeholders including other law enforcement agencies like the Police and Local Authorities.

Job description

As a Relationship Manager you will join the Outreach and Prevention team - part of the NFCU’s Intelligence and Prevention Command.

You will be instrumental in promoting the work of the NFCU to build the reputation of the unit and enhance the size of our audience through proactively engaging with the food industry and other stakeholders, often at a senior level, to introduce the NFCU. You will build strong and long-lasting relationships with our stakeholders, internal and external, to enable the flow of information around food crime and to act as a liaison between industry and the FSA.

This role will involve public speaking – and so offers an exciting opportunity to use your exceptional verbal presentation skills and ability to articulate and present to a wide range of audiences on a regular basis.

If this sounds like the exciting next step in your career and you’d like to be part of our supportive team, working together on an interesting and important aspect of the NFCU’s mission – we’d love to receive your application. Please take a look at the attached Candidate Pack to find out more.

You don’t need any experience in the area of crime prevention!

Working pattern guidance

If applying as a job share partnership you should both complete separate application forms on Civil Service Jobs but should make it clear that you are applying as job sharers. Further details on job sharing can be found here JSF – What is the recruitment process for job sharers? , Civil Service Careers (civil-service-careers.gov.uk)

Person specification

Please read the attached Candidate Pack to discover further details about the role, our organisation, who we are looking for and the criteria we will assess against during the selection process.

We look forward to receiving your application and wish you every success.

Behaviours

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together
• Managing a Quality Service

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £34,955, Food Standards Agency contributes £10,126 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.Our candidate pack details the benefits that the FSA has to offer. Please also refer to the attached Terms and Conditions statement.

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, Ability and Experience.

Full details of the selection process can be found in the attached candidate pack.

Application and shortlisting

You will be asked to provide personal details (not seen by the Panel) and to confirm your eligibility to apply for the role.

Ability: You will be asked to complete an online verbal test and, if successful, will proceed to the rest of the application.

You will then be asked to complete an application which will be used to assess you against the following essential criteria.

Essential criteria

Experience

• Lead criteria: Exceptional verbal presentation skills and ability to excel in public speaking environments.
• Ability to proactively build trusting relationships with external partners.
• Excellent drafting and written skills and the ability to articulate and present to a wide range of audiences.
• Proficient in the use of Microsoft Office software, such as MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Teams (to intermediate level).

Lead Criteria An initial sift will take place on the Lead Criteria.

In the event that we receive a large number of applications, the minimum pass mark for the Lead Criteria may be raised at shortlisting stage. Candidates who apply under the DCS, GPTW or RIS schemes and meet the minimum requirements will be unaffected by the pass mark raise.

Interview

If successful at shortlisting stage, you will be invited to a final interview in which we will assess you against the following Experience requirements of the role and Civil Service Behaviours.

Behaviours

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together
• Managing a Quality Service

Full details of the positive indicators being assessed for each Behaviour can be found in the Candidate Pack.

Experience (Assessed via seen presentation)

• Exceptional verbal presentation skills and ability to excel in public speaking environments.

Assessment exercise

As part of the interview process, you will be asked to prepare a seen presentation. Further information will be provided to you on the invitation to interview email.

Expected Timeline

Advert closes: 20 May 2026 (23:55)

Sift: Expected to take place from 21 May 2026

Final panel interview: Expected to take place during week commencing 15 June 2026

Interviews will be held remotely via MS Teams. (If you do not have the Microsoft Teams application installed on your computer, you can join on the web without installing the application).

Please note that indicated dates may be subject to change.

United Kingdom Security Vetting (UKSV) Requirements (SC)

Appointment will be subject to the candidate having, or being able to achieve, National Security Vetting at Security Check (SC) level.

All security clearances require you to provide evidence of your UK footprint where you have been physically present in the UK.

The requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK at least 3 of the last 5 years, 2 of which must have been the immediately preceding years from the point of application (although there are some exceptions e.g. if you have been serving abroad with HM Armed Forces).

Failure to meet the residency requirements will result in your security clearance application being rejected.

Checks will be made against:

• a departmental/company records check which will include, for example personal files, staff reports, sick leave returns and security records
• a check of both spent and unspent criminal records
• a check of credit and financial history with a credit reference agency
• a check of Security Service (MI5) records
• exceptionally, if there are any unresolved security concerns about the individual, or if recommended by the Security Service, the individual may also be interviewed
• in the event of any unresolved financial concerns, the individual may also be required to complete a separate financial questionnaire so that a full review of personal finances can be carried out
• checks may extend to third parties included on the security questionnaire.

Childcare Vouchers

Any move to the Food Standards Agency from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare.

Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

Reserve List

A reserve list will be held for a period of up to 12 months from which further appointment may be made.

Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.

Visa Sponsorship

Please note that the FSA does not offer visa sponsorship and cannot provide advice on visa applications

Making a complaint

The law requires that selection for appointment to the Civil Service is on merit on the basis of fair and open competition as outlined in the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles.

If you feel your application has not been treated fairly in accordance with the principles, and you wish to make a complaint, you should email the FSA’s Director of People at jo.bushnell@food.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response, you can contact the Civil Service Commission.

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

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.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 : Ben Pye
• Email : ben.pye@food.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : hr.recruitment.campaigns@food.gov.uk

Further information

If you wish to raise a complaint then please email hr.recruitment.campaigns@food.gov.uk in the first instance.

Attachments

Candidate Pack_Relationship_Manager_NFCU_(HEO)_460785 Opens in new window (pdf, 911kB)Terms and Conditions as at April 2020 Opens in new window (pdf, 42kB)