About the job

Job summary

Background

Forestry England is the body responsible for managing the Nation’s Forests.  The largest single landholding in the country, comprising over 1500 separate sites.  Forestry England manages a wide range of forested and open land, housing, commercial property and various recreation/leisure businesses receiving over 200 million visits a year.

It is an exciting time to join Corporate Affairs Division (CAD). 

The Corporate Affairs Division (CAD) mission is to maintain and build the reputation of Forestry England as a trusted, accountable, compliant and effective organisation. This is a division within Forestry England, the organisation charged with stewardship of the nation’s forests. The Corporate Affairs Division provides the corporate functions for Forestry England that includes the CEO office, strategy, natural capital, strategic programmes, policy, governance, risk, compliance, performance, insight and knowledge information governance.

The Corporate Programmes & Projects Manager role actively manages the delivery of the programmes and leads projects that fall within the strategic programmes and projects portfolio for the Corporate Affairs Division. As the division has developed, more workstreams and programmes have been established in order to meet the requirements of our obligations and to deliver on our objectives. This has meant that this role has changed from a supporting one to the job holder using their experience, understanding and influence to manage, lead and champion work. This role is working in a very visible, fast-paced team, directly in contact with the Forestry England Chief Executive, Executive Team and Senior Leadership Team as well as senior leadership and delivery staff across the wider Forestry Commission. These programmes are cross-cutting across all divisions, business units and districts, engaging with staff across disciplines and pay bands, and therefore the reach is across the whole of the Forestry Commission.

The Role

The Corporate Programmes and Project Manager is responsible for the management and development of many of Forestry England’s key strategic programmes, within the framework and specifications of the Corporate Affairs Division leadership. Currently, this includes managing the Forests for Everyone Programme, the Improvement Programme and the ‘Valuing our Information’ Programme which sits within the Knowledge, Data & Information Governance Team. They are also responsible for the delivery of specific projects such as the performance report within the Annual Report and Accounts and the strategic communications planning within Growing the Future alongside smaller projects within the team.

Job description

Key Work Areas

1. Managing the delivery and development of projects and programmes for the Corporate Affairs Division, including tracking and monitoring progress, chairing meetings, writing programme agendas for various groups and ad-hoc supporting documents.
2. Line management of project officer and other members of the team as required.
3. this position holds key leadership responsibilities and will be visibly leading and developing others within line management and the wider team.
4. Develop and implement appropriate processes and procedures through all stages of the projects and programmes lifecycle to deliver quality outcomes to time, budget and specification, advising as appropriate to meet changing needs and requirements.
5. Creating and managing a robust reporting mechanism to:
   - Support project management monitoring, improve efficiency across programmes and provide accurate information;
   - Provide insight and recommendations for the CEO and Executive Team reports
6. Facilitate the creation and delivery of project work plans and embed appropriate evaluation strategies in project delivery.
7. Changing, learning and adapting work processes through a variety of feedback routes to meet desired needs of the organisation.
8. Positively engage and influence stakeholders, to ensure the Growing the Future strategy is understood and supported throughout all the other work taking place across the organisation.
9. Lead online workshops or events for the team, projects and programmes.
10. Liaise with stakeholders to plan and deliver programmes and projects to ensure the long-term benefits of relationship building are maintained in other projects and programmes.
11. Provide in-depth organisational knowledge to ensure programmes have a high impact and lasting benefits to the organisation.
12. Providing effective programme management which includes overseeing a range of individual projects to extract the maximum impact and benefits to help achieve the Growing the Future Strategy.
13. Develop and deliver an approach to strategic programmes for maximum organisational impact benefit realisation.
14. Leading by example, ensuring professional standards of work are maintained.

Person specification

Knowledge and Skills

Essential Professional and Technical experience

• Experience in project and programme management, including finance tracking, impact monitoring, collaboratively and across multi-disciplinary teams.
• Excellent written and verbal communication and administrative skills.
• Proven experience in taking ownership of own work and being proactive and self-led in successfully delivering quality outputs to deliver the greatest value.
• Excellent organisation and time management skills.
• Proven ability to prioritise tasks and manage your time in a fast-changing operating environment.
• Awareness of context and wider knowledge to base decision-making on.
• Evidence of developing effective and long-term relationships with key internal and external stakeholders.
• Ability to communicate effectively, synthesising information to portray key messages and facilitate effective decision-making.

Desirable Professional and Technical experience

• Experience of programme management of multiple programmes and projects.
• Experience in change management programmes.
• Experience in data analysis and report creation.
• Experience in developing and implementing resilient systems and processes.
• Experience of line management.
• Project management qualifications.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £37,485, Forestry Commission contributes £10,121 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

As part of the application process, you will complete the following: 

1. A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years.
2. A Personal Statement – in no more than 750 words please provide details of how you meet the Essential relevant experience and criteria as set out in the person specification. Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form. 

Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

Sift

Should a large number of applications be received, an initial sift may be conducted using the Personal Statement.  Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment/interview.

Interview Stage 
 
For candidates successful for interview, we will be assessing you on Experience, Technical skills and Behaviours.

We will be conducting interviews in person at our Bristol office and there will be a presentation at interview stage.

Sift w/c 15 April

Interviews w/c 6 May

The above dates are subject to change.

Further Information 

A reserve list may be held for a period of 9 months from which further appointments can be made. 

Any move to Forestry Commission 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 

If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check may be carried out. 

In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service on your behalf.

However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing Pre-EmploymentChecks.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk stating the job reference number in the subject heading. 

New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band. 

Reasonable Adjustment

If a person with disabilities is put at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes. 

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should: 

Contact Government Recruitment Service via fcerecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs. 

Complete the ‘Assistance required’ section in the ‘Additional requirements’ page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional. 

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.

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. 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.