Senior Business Change Communications & Engagement Advisor - ( Ref : 6478 )

Job summary

This position is based Nationally

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

Job description

The Role

This role is a rare opportunity to play a part in bringing about systematic change to the planning system and planning casework.

We are seeking ambitious individuals with great communication and organisational skills to join our highly performing, supportive and friendly teams across Natural England’s Sustainable Development work.

Job Purpose

In this challenging, high-profile role, you will be responsible for hands on delivery of Programme Communications & Engagement activity for the Nature Restoration Fund.

Embedded within the programme, the immediate challenges you’ll work on will centre around preparing stakeholders and the organisation for the Nature Restoration Fund delivery. Working as part of a team, you’ll design and lead on assets and products, whether that be briefings, in person events or virtual forums, to ensure key information is shared at the right time.

If you are flexible and willing to work in an agile way, please read on.

Key Tasks/Principal Accountabilities

Develop and organise communications for your assigned projects within the Nature Restoration Fund programme.

Co-ordinate and project manage communications and engagement tasks, ensuring stakeholders receive go-live information in a timely fashion.

Influence, advise and develop networks to enhance links across the team, within the organisation and other key contacts and stakeholders; actively maintain engagement in a timely manner to achieve effective contribution to outcomes.

Establish a strong profile for the programmes internally and enable a good flow of intelligence and feedback across the business, including planning and delivering internal engagement opportunities alongside our communications business partner.

Work with other teams, including External Affairs, Private Office and account managers to establish how programme level engagement will complement and build on existing relationships.

Plan and deliver virtual and face-to-face events to support and amplify Natural England’s vision and mission.

Contribute to and support reactive communications as required (MP letters, Stakeholder letters, Parliamentary questions, etc.).

Be prepared to work flexibly to deliver ad-hoc outcomes as required in a high pressure and fastmoving change environment.

Using creative acumen to devise new and innovative ways to engage colleagues and stakeholders.

Knowledge, Skills & Experience

• Experience of stakeholder mapping and analysis. (Essential)
• Experience of planning Comms & Engagement in a project/programme environment (Essential)
• Experience of business change and readiness activity – ensuring stakeholders know what to do and by when (Essential)
• Ability to work at pace, with autonomy, to produce detailed stakeholder engagement plans and activities (Essential)
• Experience of tailoring messages to specific audiences, both internal and external, using a range of materials for engagement. (Essential)
• Experience of delivering impactful verbal and written communications. (Essential)
• Able to work effectively across teams and build strong, collaborative relationships. (Essential)
• Able to work confidently in busy and complex environments, making sound decisions and managing risks, while remaining resilient and adaptable when priorities shift quickly or circumstances change unexpectedly. (Essential)
• Strategic thinker who can link project work to wider organisational goals. (Essential)
• Confident user of Microsoft Office, especially Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams webinars (Essential)
• Experience with public consultation processes (Desirable)
• Creative design skills (Desirable)

Benefits

At Natural England, we support a healthy work-life balance by offering full-time, parttime, 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 25 days (pro-rata), increasing by one day for each year of service up to 30 days (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.

National team roles can be linked with any Natural England office while Area Team roles will be linked with an office in the relevant geographic area.

View a map of our office locations here: online map of Natural England office locations

Pay

It is Natural England policy to employ at the entry point of the salary range.

You will become an active member of the relevant local leadership community, the group of senior Natural England staff in each of the localities across England who we ask to provide support and co-ordination for the local group of staff.

How to Apply

We welcome and encourage applications from all communities. Natural England is accredited to the Disability Confident Scheme, which denotes organisations which have a positive attitude towards disabled people. Disabled applicants who meet the minimum requirements for the role at the shortlisting stage are guaranteed an invitation to interview.

If you require a reasonable adjustment at interview, or there is anything else you would like the panel to take into consideration, you should notify us of this at application stage where possible, or well in advance of your interview. We now provide primary interview questions in advance for all formal recruitments.

This vacancy uses competency-based assessment. We'll assess you against the competencies below during the selection process:

Technical Skills and Knowledge

Personal Effectiveness

Work Delivery

Putting People at the Heart of the Environment

When completing the application form you should present relevant examples using the

STAR format. Give us an example of how you have demonstrated the competency

(which can be work related or from another area of your life) and tell us about the Situation, the specific Task you had to undertake, the specific Actions you took, and the Result (both immediate and in a wider context) of your Action.

Please note that STAR format is not required when answering a Technical Skills & Knowledge competency.

Examples should be given in no more than 250 words for each competency.

If you are successful at the shortlisting stage, you will be invited to attend an interview via MS Teams or a suitable alternative, where you will be asked to give examples for all competencies as set out in the Job Description.

Please note: 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 for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Competencies

Competence 1

Professional competency

Detail

Technical Skills and Knowledge

Description

• Proven experience in Business Readiness/Change communications and engagement
  • Proven track record of delivering effective communications across complex, multi stakeholder programmes, managing multiple activities simultaneously.
  • Skills translating technical policy into real world, applicable actions for stakeholders.
  • In depth Knowledge of Comms & Engagement across Whitehall, interdependencies between departments and Civil Service C&E process knowledge (Desirable)

Competence 2

Professional competency

Detail

Personal Effectiveness

Description

• Be ambitious, identify and adopt ways to make improvements in your team and your organisation and inspire others to act (Practitioner).
  • Share expertise and knowledge with people and networks so that you can develop together (Practitioner).
  • Act with integrity, addressing challenging issues and managing conflict through being open and objective (Practitioner).

Competence 3

Professional competency

Detail

Work Delivery

Description

• Manage and deliver your work to meet agreed targets and deadlines (Expert).
  • See the big picture so you can set your team’s work within the context of the organisation’s vision, mission and aims, and help them understand how their work relates to and supports this (Practitioner).

Competence 4

Professional competency

Detail

Putting People at the Heart of the Environment

Description

• Listen to and understand diverse partners and customers so that you achieve the best outcomes for them and your organisation (Practitioner).

Person specification

Please refer to Job Description

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £39,660, Natural England contributes £11,489 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%

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 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 : Liz Sopwith
• Email : liz.sopwith@naturalengland.org.uk

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/6478-6478-Senior-Business-Change-Communications-Engagement-Advisor/en-GB

Attachments

DEF-001h - Candidate Pack Natural England v2.5 Opens in new window (docx, 424kB)