Team Leader Flood Forecasting

**Contract type**: Permanent

**Work pattern**: Full time, 37 hours per week.

**Post number**: 201223

As an organisation we support flexible working. This role allows hybrid working (a mix of home and office working) and a working pattern suitable for you can be discussed on appointment if you are successful.

You will be contracted to the NRW location stated in this advert, of which you will be required to attend for regular meetings, training and for one-to-one meetings with your manager. These will be planned in advance.

This is an exciting opportunity to deliver strategic improvements to our forecasting services and manage their operational delivery.

We are looking for an experienced flood, water or environment professional with leadership and management experience to lead our national Flood Forecasting team.

Natural Resources Wales has a statutory duty to provide a flood warning service to communities at risk of river and coastal flooding in Wales. Our flood forecasting service makes a crucial contribution by informing the decisions we make on communicating developing flood risk to professional partners, issuing warnings to the public and operational management of our assets.

The Flood Forecasting team is responsible for delivering the flood forecasting service by:

- Defining policy and strategy
- Undertaking river and coastal forecasting model development
- Building and maintaining operational systems
- Training and supporting 24/7 duty rotas
- Working with partner agencies across the UK to develop and maintain shared capabilities, including the Met Office and joint Flood Forecasting Centre

The Team Leader will manage a team of flood forecasting specialists to continue the delivery of an effective, resilient, sustainable and professional flood forecasting service for locations at risk of river and coastal flooding across Wales.

Over the next 5 years, the Team Leader will also oversee the strategic development of the service, drawing on lessons learnt from recent severe flooding, ensuring that the service continues to be resilient whilst incorporating technological advances, improvements in scientific understanding and improved communication of forecast confidence.

They will lead the team to ensure our flood forecasting service is risk-based, efficient and tailored to the needs of internal customers, professional partners and local communities in Wales. The Team Leader will also secure, maintain and improve the delivery of business-critical services we deliver in partnership with other UK flood agencies.

They will mentor and support the development of their team and undertake workforce and succession planning so the team is ready and resilient to future change and opportunities.

As well as managing the flood forecasting team, the Team Leader will manage our Monitoring and Forecasting Duty Officer rota. This rota provides a 24/7 365 flood forecasting service for river and coastal flooding across Wales, which is used to inform our incident preparation, flood warning decisions and operational response on the ground.

As a Monitoring & Forecasting Duty Officer the post holder will be expected to deliver out of hours flood incident duty from home and in exceptional circumstances may need to attend their nearest NRW incident room.

**Responsibilities**:
Your responsibilities will include to:

- Develop and implement the flood forecasting strategy for Wales.
- Lead and manage the flood forecasting policy, processes, systems and operational services for Wales to enable delivery of business-critical operational services which depend on these.
- Embed risk-based thinking and approaches in the team’s work so that flood forecasting service improvements are risk based and tailored to communities.
- Lead, manage and motivate a team of specialist staff.
- Engage with NRW staff and managers and external stakeholders to inform, influence, shape and communicate the short, medium and long-term direction of the flood forecasting service in Wales.
- Develop and implement a long-term plan for the development and maintenance of the flood forecasting service in Wales.
- Work with Evidence Policy & Permitting and Operations Flood Warning and Informing Team Leaders so that flood warning data maintenance standards, processes, local procedures and ways of working interface effectively and efficiently with our flood forecasting systems and services.
- Manage flood forecasting customer and stakeholder relationships. Work in collaboration with others, internally and externally, to secure, maintain and develop flood forecasting services in Wales.
- Engage with partners and stakeholders at national (Wales), UK and international scales so that the delivery of flood forecasting services in Wales is maintained and integrated with other’s flood forecasting service provision, including negotiating and securing managed service or collaborative agreements.
- Monitor and control financial and non-financial resources to deliver