Strategic Solutions Principal Adviser

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

- 327212**Salary**:

- £45,055- A Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%**Job grade**:

- Grade 7- Principal Adviser**Contract type**:

- Permanent**Type of role**:

- Strategy**Working pattern**:

- Full-time, Job share, Part-time**Number of jobs available**:

- 1Contents

Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location
- East Midlands (England), East of England, London (region), North East England, North West England, South East England, South West England, West Midlands (England), Yorkshire and the HumberAbout the job

**Job summary**:

- This position is based Nationally**Job description**:
Strategy and Government Advice (SGA) provides advice, support and delivery of work for Natural England’s 4 programmes and Marine, Strategy and Managing the Organisation. The team advises the government on the development of its environmental policy relevant to our remit; develops and delivers new programmes and pilots for the government to support major strategies such as the Environment Act and 25-Year Environment Plan; leads stakeholder relationships with key national-level partners and develops internal standards and guidance on novel issues.

The Strategic Solutions Team sits within the Sustainable Development part of Strategy and Government Advice. The focus of the Strategic Solutions team is to make effective contributions to the delivery of the SD Programme 5 Year Aims by:

- influencing government’s reform agenda (including planning and environmental assessment reforms, Glover) to deliver for the natural environment
- developing strategic solutions to planning and marine licensing challenges affecting large areas or multiple sites; and handling government relationships to support this
- handling important national stakeholder relationships, for example infrastructure stakeholders and
- providing strategic advice to support and enable terrestrial and marine business improvement and casework reform.

Job description

**Role Description**

We are seeking a creative thinker with a strong track record of leading others and setting direction to drive and deliver innovation and change. You’ll show change leadership for your work area and help embed this change and bring people with you. You’ll need to be able to constructively challenge and support the business in developing strategic solutions.

External relationships will be critical. You will feed into cross-government policy making and programme-level stakeholder engagement planning, taking particular leadership for stakeholders relevant to your work area. This will likely require liaison with developers and a range of government departments to scope and develop solutions and test risk appetite.

Your internal networks are as important; you will work closely with NE’s Strategy & Government Advice, National Operations and Area Team colleagues, as well as specialists and legal teams, and collegiately with Sustainable Development Programme Team.

Building and maintaining relationships and networks is an essential element to this role, therefore some travel for in-person working will be required.

**Key Tasks and Accountabilities**

The post holder will:

- Work with government departments and key stakeholders to influence emerging policy and strategy as it relates to planning strategic solutions, to maximise environmental outcomes.
- Identify opportunities for and lead the design and implementation of new strategic solutions. This will include:

- Reduce uncertainty in decision making, by making better use of existing data and driving partnership approaches to better understand environmental impacts and deliver environmental benefits, commissioning new evidence where required.
- Develop solutions which address issues of cumulative and in-combination impacts for key habitats and species where environmental limits are being reached; and appropriate monitoring measures to ensure the solutions are effective.
- Look for opportunities and challenges of existing or new external strategic initiatives, policies or other external influences; and seek out opportunities for shared endeavour projects.
- Support, and enable, the delivery of strategic solutions within your portfolio by:

- Developing and testing new strategic approaches, bringing together the expertise of colleagues across NE to provide appropriate assurance.
- Evaluating the effectiveness of existing strategic approaches.
- Challenging current approaches and drive discussions on improvements and reforms, focused on NE’s mission of building partnerships for nature recovery.
- Leading organisation-wide discussions and networks; testing and embedding ideas, ensuring programme direction draws on organisational and external expertise.
- Inputting into stakeholder planning and leading on key strategic stakeholder relations, including government.
- Developing and lead relevant projects through governance processes such