Delivery & Planning Advisor, Canada, Mexico &

**Details**:
**Reference number**:

- 265028**Salary**:

- £52,000 - £61,933- London: £55,365 - £61,933 National: £52,000 - £58,652**Job grade**:

- Grade 7**Contract type**:

- Fixed Term
- Loan
- Secondment**Length of employment**:

- 12 months maternity cover**Business area**:

- DIT - Trade Negotiations: CPTPP**Type of role**:

- International Trade
- Planning
- Project Delivery**Working pattern**:

- Flexible working, Full-time, Homeworking, Part-time**Number of jobs available**:

- 1Contents

Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location
- Darlington, LondonAbout the job

**Job summary**:
The Department for International Trade has embarked upon an ambitious international trade agreement programme. You will play an important role within the Canada, Mexico and Greenland (“CMG”) team - part of the Trade Negotiations Group in the DIT, leading on planning and delivery of two live negotiations.

You will be responsible for leading the operational delivery arm of the team, to ensure the smooth delivery of Free Trade Agreements (FTA) negotiations for Mexico and Canada. This will involve time sensitive planning and project management, the ability to lead a multifaceted project which involves coordinating the movement of 150+ people - both in the UK and in partner country. In addition, you will hold a critical position during negotiating rounds themselves, playing both a strategic and coordination role in directly support the Chief Negotiator and Chapter Teams. The role holder will ensure that both FTAs have a long-term strategy that takes into account the interdependencies between the Canada and Mexico negotiations, ensuring sufficient resource is available across CMG and objectives for each negotiation round are clear to enable decision-making on UK delegation for each round.

CMG is a fun, friendly and inclusive team. We pride ourselves in creating a happy working environment for everyone to thrive and place particular importance on every team member developing themselves for their future career. We work together across country sub-teams to deliver our collective objectives, recognising the value of joined up working and collaboration to contribute to learning across different workstreams. You will have a unique role working across all the sub teams, often providing visible leadership to your direct peers.

This is an exciting and challenging area to work on, with significant No10 and cross-Whitehall interest and interactions with Foreign Policy objectives. Sometimes we need to work at pace and to tight deadlines, but we work as a team to meet these challenges. We encourage applicants with diverse working patterns (including job shares) and caring responsibilities.

**Job description**:
**Project Management**:

- Oversee and assure project management of all stages of the FTA process to enable smooth delivery of negotiations.
- Lead on long-term strategy for the lifecycle of the FTA to set milestones for policy teams and inform decision-making for representation at individual negotiation rounds.
- Management of the Canada and Mexico FTA timelines to ensure sufficient resource across both teams to deliver UK objectives.

**Guidance, advice & reporting**:

- Responsible for drafting guidance for negotiations rounds.
- Management of reporting, risk, interdependencies, information/knowledge, and security considerations.
- Ensure that the team’s work is reflected and managed through central Trade Policy Group Secretariat planning. Leading the reporting of negotiations progress updates to the Secretary of State and senior officials across Whitehall.

**Operational delivery**:

- Develop and deliver negotiation rounds, including logistics for in person, hybrid, and fully remote negotiations.
- Managing a single point of contact function for negotiations rounds logistics.
- Day-to-day oversight of workstream progress, ensuring the teams are kept on track and are able to deliver against milestones.
- Lead on facilitating DIT Ministerial visits in support of negotiations.
- Coordinate international engagement between Country Team, the UK Embassy and partner country to find the best course of action and make recommendations to our Chief Negotiator and Minister.

**Leadership**:

- Playing a key role in the leadership of the team to contribute to a positive working atmosphere for all.
- The role will include line management, matrix management across the team and oversight of the planning and delivery sub team.

**Person specification**:
**Desirable Criteria**

This role would be suitable for someone with prior planning, project and delivery experience and/or experience scaling up large events involving lots of people, managing moving parts and able to drive progress in ambiguity. It might suit someone from the planning profession who wants to also gain some experience in policy.

Some experience of trade policy and working across Whitehall to deliver outcomes would be useful. Some i