Local recruitment: Water Resources Drought Specialist (Grade 5)

Environment Agency

Birmingham, UK 🇬🇧

Number of jobs available: 1
Region: South West, West Midlands
City/Town: Birmingham , Kidderminster , Shrewsbury , Tewkesbury , Fradley
Building/Site: Riversmeet House, Hafren House, Mance House, Sentinel House, AQUA HOUSE BIRMINGHAM B3 1AQ
Grade: Staff Grade 5
Post Type: Permanent
Working Pattern: Full Time
Role Type: Environment & Sustainability, Information Technology, Operational Delivery, Knowledge & Information Management
Salary Minimum: £37,462

Job description

It’s a fantastic time to work for the Environment Agency as we the tackle the climate and nature emergency. As part of the area integrated planning team, you will be at the heart of ensuring the area is resilient and ready to respond to drought to safeguard the environment and water supplies.

You will build area drought resilience, working with your local drought coordinators and across multiple areas, to plan and deliver drought response improvements, working across the hub to ensure that each area in their hub has a current drought plan, a resilient level of drought capability and incident capacity. As part of the national drought communities of practice (water supply, agriculture, regulation), you will help deliver lessons learnt from recent drought, develop guidance (internal and external), develop and deliver training and work with external partners in testing and training.
In addition, you will:
• Shape approaches to drought planning – providing advice and technical support to area, pan-area and national teams.
• Providing support to key incident roles helping us meet the demands of improving our incident preparedness.
• Support area and national operations input during drought, being agile to meet the business need.
• Act as a drought specialist to deliver drought management, planning, preparedness, and response.
• Guide and advise others on drought issues, ensuring decisions are made on sound technical grounds
• Maintain links with national drought groups / staff on behalf of WMD Area – raising area issues and feeding back to Area Drought Leads. This includes the national drought practitioners’ group.
• Identify external engagement opportunities across the area and hub
• Participate and lead projects to deliver learning from recent drought and planning for drought.

The team

The role will sit within the Integrated Environment Planning team providing drought resilience planning alongside providing regulation support and building a knowledge base on drought planning activity and response, expertise in your priority area (water supply, agriculture, regulation) to maintain environmental performance within the area and to the wider business.

Experience/skills required

Your excellent interpersonal and project management skills will be complimented by your ability to achieve results, solve problems, and communicate technical issues in a clear and concise manner to a range of audiences, supported by your drought knowledge.

Through your experience you will be able to demonstrate the following:
• Good interpersonal skills, communication, and presentation skills.
• Self-motivated and able to work on your own initiative or as part of a dispersed team.
• Excellent communication skills and experience of building relationships.
• Ability to work across Area teams, pan-area, OCS and E&B for a joined up and nationally consistent approach.
• Good judgement, problem solving and decision-making skills.
• Good planning & organisational skills, with the ability to handle multiple priorities and deliver to tight timescales.

Contact and additional information

This is a permanent role. For further information contact the team leader Ruth Meek ruth.meek@environment-agency.gov.uk or drought lead Vicky Antram vicky.antram@environment-agency.gov.uk.
Interviews will be held remotely from week commencing 12th June.

Job description attachment 1  

Job Profile – 26521.docx – 58KB 
Converted File Job Profile – 26521.docx.pdf – 63KB 

Candidate pack  

Candidate Pack – 26521.docx – 1868KB 
Converted File Candidate Pack – 26521.docx.pdf – 513KB 

Closing Date:  28/05/2023, 23:55 hours

Level of security checks required:  Basic Check

Competence 1: Achieves Results
Description
Give an example of when you have planned and delivered a challenging piece of work to a deadline, where delivery relied on others’ input as much as your own and what you did to achieve this?
Competence 2: Communicates Effectively
Description
Describe a time where you have communicated important and vital information to a technical audience to achieve a stated outcome or result?
Competence 3: Data and Information Management
Description
Give an example of how you manage data and report it and how you keep it up to date?
Competence 4: Takes Decisions and Solves Problems
Description
Describe a situation when you successfully resolved a technical issue and the steps you took to achieve this?
Role specific license requirements: A full UK driving licence would be advantageous as there may be some travelling between offices from time to time

If you are applying from the Civil Service please note that the Environment Agency is not a part of HM Civil Service and you would not be a Crown Servant in the event of being appointed. Therefore, you will not be eligible for continuous service. For applicants who currently work in local government or other bodies listed in the Redundancy Payments (Continuity of Employment in Local Government etc) (Modification) Order 1999, you may be eligible for continuous service for the purpose of calculating any future redundancy payment. If you are unsure of your status then you should contact your own HR Team.

We are fully committed to having a diverse and inclusive workforce to reflect the communities we serve. We welcome flexible working patterns for all our vacancies, including job share, so please include clearly any information regarding your preferred working arrangements on your application.

We also have a Guaranteed Interview Policy to support those with a disability who are seeking employment. We have committed to guaranteeing an interview to anyone with a disability whose application meets the minimum criteria for the post.

The Environment Agency, as a Non-Departmental Public Body, is committed to providing value for money and utilises Central Government frameworks and contracts for all external recruitment needs. For this reason, we are unable to engage with the market directly through post, email or phone calls . Should you wish to become a support supplier on one of these frameworks or contracts please visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/become-a-crown-commercial-service-supplier/becoming-a-supplier-through-the-crown-commercial-service-what-you-need-to-know for more information.


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