Head of Regulatory Programmes

Salary: £62,011 - £70,278 A Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

Job grade: Grade 6

Working pattern: Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time

Are you an experienced senior leader with an environmental background who has extensive experience in managing complex, cross cutting projects enabling an organisation to achieve its strategic objectives?

Do you have experience in leading multi disciplinary teams to deal with reactive and proactive cross cutting matters?

Do you enjoy writing and have experience in preparing high profile, dynamic reports with accuracy and clarity for decision makers?

Do you want to play a significant role in helping the OEP achieve its mission to protect and improve the environment?

We are looking for a dynamic, motivated and professional individual to join our small team working at the heart of the OEP as a Head of Regulatory Programmes in the Regulatory Directorate. The Regulatory Directorate is responsible for delivery of key functions as set out in the Environment Act 2021. These are monitoring, investigating, and enforcing the implementation of environmental law, and advising the government on the development of law and other matters relating to the natural environment.

The successful candidate will be responsible for leading complex, multi disciplinary projects designed to contribute to the OEP’s aims of protecting and improving the environment, through the identification and resolution of compliance issues, or by drafting and publishing reports on the implementation and effectiveness of environmental law.

The Office for Environmental Protection (the OEP) mission is to protect and recover the environment. Created by the Environment Act 2021, our role is to hold Government and public bodies to account. The OEP do this in several ways including reporting on progress against environmental targets, advising on changes to environmental laws and receiving complaints from the public which can lead to us taking enforcement action.

With a total staff of just over 70, we are a dynamic, friendly and flexible organisation covering both England, Northern Ireland, and environmental matters reserved to the UK government. We offer flexible working arrangements, high profile, dynamic work and the chance to have an impact on improving the state of the environment.

To find out more about the OEP, what we do, who we are and our current work, visit the OEP website.

The OEP is a non-departmental public body sponsored by Defra in England and DAERA in Northern Ireland which means it operates independently from Defra. Employees are public servants and as part of the benefits package, employees have the opportunity to enrol in the Civil Service Pension Scheme.

Job description

This is an exciting opportunity to work across the Regulatory Directorate to support with the delivery of the OEP’s key objectives to contribute to environmental protection and improvement of the natural environment.

The Regulatory Directorate is comprised of three teams – the Complaints and Investigations Team, the Monitoring Environmental Law and Advice Team, and the Intelligence team. The successful candidate will be expected to work flexibly across the organisation to identify and address issues within the OEPs remit.

The OEP take an issues-based approach to identifying the projects we work on and consider all of our functions, such as Insights, monitoring environmental Law, Investigations and Enforcement, when determining what action we should take. The advertised role will be crucial in supporting this approach, through the identification of appropriate topics and management of projects that could result in formal enforcement action where evidence of serious non-compliance has been found, or in laying reports before parliament where we wish to comment on the implementation and effectiveness of environmental laws.

The role holder will;

• Lead on a wide range of projects to address issues relating to compliance with and implementation of environmental law and associated policy. This will include co-ordinating and contributing to reports, correspondence and website content.
• Co-ordinate activity across the OEP to support strategic objectives.
• Lead on stakeholder engagement to ensure outcomes are aligned with expectations.
• Support the Monitoring Environmental Law (MEL), Complaints and Investigations (C&I) and Insights teams within the regulatory directorate to promote compliance with and test the effectiveness of relevant legislation in addition to evidence gathering.
• Identify future project work through engagement across the OEP with Intelligence and insights teams.
• Support with the development and evolution of OEP policy and procedure.
• Line manage staff.

The above list of job duties is not exclusive or exhaustive and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.

Information Webinars:

We are hosting a webinar during the application period to provide potential candidates with the opportunity to meet the team, to find out more about the role and to ask questions. The webinar will be held on Tuesday 23rd April 2024 at 10am. A link to join can be found via the 'Apply' button. 

Person specification

Essential Criteria;