Policy Advisor - Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom - Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Verified Company

Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

2 weeks ago

Posted by:

Tom O´Connor

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Description

Details:

Reference number:

Salary:

- £30,317 - £36,606

National: £30,317 £32,803, London: £33,827 £36,606 For details of our pay on appointment policy, please see below under the heading 'Salary'
Job grade:
Higher Executive Officer
Contract type:
Permanent
Fixed Term
Loan
Secondment
Length of employment:
24 months
Business area:
DEFRA
ERM
Floods & Water
Type of role:
Policy
Working pattern:
Flexible working, Fulltime, Job share, Parttime
Number of jobs available:
3Contents

Location

About the job

Benefits:

Things you need to know

Location

Bristol, London, NewcastleuponTyne, YorkAbout the job

Job summary:

Defra is a welcoming, inclusive and supportive department, which plays a crucial role in achieving a better world for us all to live in.

Policy advisors are responsible for turning the Government's goals into action. We are problem solvers.

We help design programmes of policy by bringing together expert advice from inside and outside the Civil Service to deliver on the Government's promises.

These roles are an opportunity to work at the cutting edge of public policy, in an area with a lot of public interest.

They are suitable for people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

While prior knowledge of the policy area is great to have, successful applicants are recruited based on their transferable skills.

This may be from prior work experience (inside or outside the Civil Service), from education or from volunteering.

Job description:

We are seeking a number of capable people to contribute to our policy and strategy work in Floods & Water.

We value your range of skills and we do not expect applicants to have specialist knowledge of the area. These roles are a great opportunity to get your foot on the ladder of a Civil Service policy career.

You will have the opportunity to develop a wide range of skills, including policy development, commercial skills, and project management, among others.

You will play an active role in shaping and delivering the Floods & Water priorities, working creatively and collaboratively with others to deliver excellent outcomes.

You will need to build trusted relationships across Floods & Water Directorate, with wider Defra colleagues, other government departments and arm's length bodies (such as the Environment Agency), and with external stakeholders, inspiring confidence and trust.

You can expect frequent interaction with Ministers, Special Advisers and senior officials, including in other government departments. It's a very exciting time to join the team and be part of supporting important policy areas.

As a policy advisor you may have responsibility for:

Briefing Ministers and senior leaders, orally and in writing
Drafting responses to written correspondence
Responding to Parliamentary Questions on your policy area
Negotiating policy positions with other departments
Helping draft consultations and official government responses
Working with stakeholders and experts to design new policy interventions
You may also have line management responsibilities for Executive Officers.

Flood & Coastal Erosion Risk Management Team

The Government is investing £5.2 billion over in flood defences in a capital programme to better protect properties across the country.

A review of this programme requires new additional work at pace to identify all options to strengthen and where possible accelerate delivery, in light of the wider economic context.

The review covers a wide range of aspects from contracting to approvals through to funding policy and financial incentives.

Work you may be involved in includes:

Generating, assessing, and formulating advice for Ministerial decisions over a short space of time, relating to specific proposals emerging from the floods programme review, including those areas listed above
Programme managing all the workstreams, reporting on the work, and maintaining engagement with several external stakeholders, with the support of a team member.
Developing materials for any public announcements, engaging comms and other internal and external stakeholders

Water Services Team

The Water Services team is responsible for ensuring that the government's priorities for the water environment are delivered by water companies.

We hold the water companies to account with regulators, set objectives and develop long-term policy for the industry.

The work in this team is spread across several key areas:

Water Efficiency; Drought Resilience; Economic Regulation and Company Performance; Drainage and Wastewater, Drinking and Bathing water and Water infrastructure.

Work you may be involved with includes:

Drought policy in preparation for summer 2023 as well as longer term water resilience work
Delivery of new innovation measures to increase water supply and improve infrastructure
Making sustainable drainage mandatory in new d