Deputy Director

Deputy Director – Environment Agency Business Partners

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)

Flexible location with the willingness to travel to London, Birmingham, Bristol and other key locations.

With large and wide-ranging responsibilities, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) works collaboratively to protect the environment and to maintain and grow the rural economy. Our vital work is far-reaching and complex. The UK’s impending exit from the EU continues to set us absorbing challenges. Join us and you will contribute to the development of new approaches and policies affecting millions of people across the country. This is a career-defining opportunity that offers networking and professional development.

As a senior member of Defra Group Finance, you will support the Environment Agency (EA) in some of its most critical challenges. Ensuring finance remains at the heart of every decision, you will:

• Lead around 40 finance professionals, guiding the team to deliver high-quality evidence-led advice and guidance on projects affecting anything from water resources to flooding risks.
• Constructively challenge colleagues in the EA, seeing to it that the organisation’s £1.3billion budget and resources are being used wisely and that the public are receiving value for money.
• Support EA business partners in shaping and implementing business plans and business cases which are affordable. You will then monitor the progress of these projects, identifying corporate risk, mitigating problems and ensuring management intervention at the earliest stages.
• Play an active role in the Government Finance Profession, and Defra group Finance during a period of transformation. Representing the Finance function in major operational projects, on senior business boards and developing your team’s relationships with external stakeholders such as Regional Flood and Coastal Committee Chairs, you will be a trusted voice of authority.
• Lead in-year forecasting processes, and take responsibility for reporting financial performance.
• Drive a culture of continuous improvement, including looking for opportunities and technology that will enhance how we work. This will include encouraging the team to work collaboratively, and developing a pipeline of talent.

This is a highly stimulating challenge with the scope to work on some of the nation’s most pressing environmental challenges. You will therefore excel in the role if you are a senior finance professional with a CCAB Accountancy qualification or equivalent. As a natural leader with exceptional influencing and people management capabilities, you will have a track record of working with and credibly challenging senior level stakeholders and leaders. With the capacity to embed financial objectives in decision-making processes, you will be customer-focussed, and you will relish the chance to analyse and interpret information from a variety of sources in order to deliver the most accurate recommendations. Vitally, you will be able to the see the bigger picture, and make effective decisions in a constantly changing environment.

We aim to support the professional and personal wellbeing of everyone in Defra. Our benefits include generous annual leave, a contributory pension, staff bonuses and recognition, salary sacrifice benefit options, and an employee discount scheme. We also offer flexible working and a variety of learning and development opportunities.