Communications Officer

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

- 248127**Salary**:

- £25,915 - £30,402- National: £25,915 - £27,116, For details of our pay on appointment policy, please see below under the heading ‘Salary’.**Job grade**:

- Executive Officer- AIO**Contract type**:

- Permanent**Business area**:

- DEFRA - S&C - Communications - Communications**Type of role**:

- Communications / Marketing**Working pattern**:

- Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time, Compressed Hours**Number of jobs available**:

- 2Contents

Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location
- North East England, North West England, Yorkshire and the HumberAbout the job

**Job summary**:
Operational and Local Communications teams plan, deliver and evaluate strategic communications activity to help Defra, the Environment Agency, Natural England, Forestry Commission and the Animal and Plant Health Agency deliver their organisational priorities.

They also help to identify, plan for and respond to incidents and high risk reputational issues such as flooding and disease / pest outbreaks.

We have an exciting opportunity available for two Communications Officers. These roles will be in the North West Operational and Local Communications Team, and the Yorkshire & North East Operational and Local Communications Team.

The team is based in offices across the country, co-located with appropriate teams where possible, and use expert local and technical knowledge of the media, political and economic landscape to do their work.

They build relationships with operational teams, working with them to advise on and balance operational priorities with longer-term strategies to deliver high-impact communications.

Team members are versatile, balancing razor-sharp incident and issue management response with long-term strategic communications programmes that change behaviours. Warning communities about the risk of flooding in one part of the country, advising about animal and plant disease threats in another, encouraging the wise use of water or getting people to follow good tree health biosecurity practice is all part of a day’s work.

Team members manage these competing themes and give professional advice on where the available resource is best used and will make the greatest impact in achieving business objectives. They build strong relationships with key people to become trusted advisors in preparing for, managing, and recovering from high-risk reputational issues and incidents.

**Job description**:

- Supporting communications managers and specialists with specific communications plans and programmes, for example, producing evaluation reports, drafting and issuing press releases and developing content for use on social media
- Playing an active role in the incident communications response by drafting, agreeing and delivering messages via agreed channels/processes
- Responding to reactive media enquiries, drafting and issuing media statements
- Management of area social media channels
- Producing weekly area e-newsletters
- Giving advice and guidance on brand identity and publishing
- Producing regular evaluation reports on communications activity, supporting continuous improvement within the team by highlighting lessons learnt / areas where improvements could be made
- Managing shared mailboxes
- Supporting the 24/7 on call communications service and out of hours incident response

**Person specification**:

- Excellent written and verbal communications skills
- Strong interpersonal skills
- The ability to quickly understand and distil complex information and translate it into plain English
- The creative skills necessary to produce innovative social media content and contribute to the design of communications plans and campaigns that aim to change public behaviour
- The resilience and organisational skills necessary to manage competing workloads under pressure.

**Behaviours**:
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

- Communicating and Influencing
- Delivering at Pace

**Technical skills**:
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

- Government Communication Professional Competency Framework: Press & Media
- Government Communication Professional Competency Framework: Digital

**Benefits**:

- Learning and development tailored to your role
- An environment with flexible working options
- A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
- A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

**Blended Working**

Things you need to know

**Selection process details**:

- This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths, Experience and Technical skills.**Application Process**

**Sift**

Sift date to be confirmed.

**Interview**

An exercise will be required as part of the interview process. Further details will be provided, if invited to interview.

Interviews will be conducted via MS Teams.

**Location**