Grazings Officer

Overview:
The Crofting Commission is a Non-Departmental Public Body of approximately 70 staff. The organisation is responsible for the regulation of crofting and maintains a register of crofts. Crofting is a traditional system of smallholdings unique to certain areas of Scotland, particularly the Highlands and Islands. Crofting brings a range of benefits such as sustaining rural communities, supporting biodiversity, and low intensity, small scale food production. Crofting is supported by considerable legislation that gives rights to crofters and protects crofting land for the future, in which the Crofting Commission has a pivotal role.

This exciting opportunity sits within the Policy, Grazings, Development and Communications team of 10 staff. The team has a varied remit. You will focus on Common Grazings. Common Grazings are sizable areas of croft land with a shared management structure to graze livestock. Shareholders in the Common Grazings can form a committee to run the grazings.

Excellent communication is vital to the role. You should be able to develop and maintain good working relationships with a wide range of stakeholders including internal Commission staff and external contacts such as crofters, solicitors, landlords and government departments. The role would suit someone who works well within a team, is calm and professional in working with customers, has good attention to detail and an interest in learning and understanding complex records. You will receive full training on the role. You will report to the Grazings Manager and also work closely with another Grazings Officer and the Grazings Administrator.

You will work from your computer and will become familiar with using the case work processing system known as CIS which is bespoke system for which you will receive the required training for. You will also regularly use Microsoft Outlook, Teams, Edge and Adobe Acrobat.

**Responsibilities**:

- Respond to grazings related enquiries
- Support grazings committees and shareholders in a range of situations which will involve providing advice and correspondence
- Perform shareholder investigations to establish correct share positions
- Assist in creating new regulations for common grazings
- Liaise with the regulatory team on cases where grazings expertise is required

**Competencies**
Self Awareness

Communications and Engagement

Improving Performance

Analysis and use of evidence

Essential Criteria & Qualifications:
No qualifications are required for this role

**Essential Criteria**
1. Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with an ability to communicate clearly with a variety of audiences.

2. Strong planning and organisational skills, including the ability to manage demanding workloads and competing priorities.

3. Ability to research and analyse information to make informed decisions and present information to senior staff.

4. Confident using and learning IT/online programs such as Microsoft products.

**Location**:
The role is based in Inverness and will be a combination of home based working inline with the Scottish Government hybrid working guidelines and working from the office in Great Glen House, Inverness. There will be a requirement for occasional travel to meet crofters within the crofting counties or for other events.

**Minimum Time in Post**:
You will be expected to remain in post for a minimum of three years unless successful at gaining promotion to a higher Band or Grade.

**How to apply**:
**Additional Information**:
The post is a full-time role, but staff with different working patterns are invited to apply, and we will assess proposed working patterns against the business requirements for this post.

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