Regulatory Woodland Officer

Closing date: 3 April 2023 | Salary: £32,876-£36,229 (Grade 5) | Location: Flexible in North East Wales

Contract type: Permanent

Work pattern: 37 hours per week, full-time

Post number: 200614

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 a NRW office within the place base, 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.

Job description

As a Regulatory Woodland Officer, you will help deliver our forest regulatory compliance and incident response role across North East Wales.

Our team cover the whole of Wales, with individual officers looking after their own patch. We are looking for an officer who can contribute to the delivery of our regulatory work with the forestry sector, businesses, and individuals. The role is predominantly office / home based (to be discussed on appointment), but has regular opportunities for field work, and you will work with a wide range of internal and external customers.

You will have a big role to play in responding to alleged illegal fellings, providing advice to inform the outcome of felling licence applications, EIA screenings and other applications for relevant forestry and tree permissions in the patch. You will respond to incidents in a timely, safe manner and take appropriate enforcement action when necessary. These work areas are likely to dominate your work load but you may be called on to contribute to other areas within the Forest Regulation and Tree Health teams’ remit.

Tenacity, persistence, and the ability to build good working relationships are all skills that our successful Regulatory Woodland Officers exhibit, ideally you will bring these to the role from day one.

We will help you to develop skills to be able to provide technical advice to internal and external stakeholders, and your ability to undertake investigations and subsequent enforcement action as a result of illegal felling activity.

Join our team as an enthusiastic and professional officer, to work at a fast pace, often to tight deadlines, effectively prioritising your workload in order to deliver more for the environment.

Responsibilities

Your responsibilities will include to:

Assess compliance with relevant legislation.
Take appropriate actions to collect evidence for enforcement purposes, in accordance with defined procedures.
Production of relevant procedures and documentation.
Issue Statutory Notices in line with government policy and regulatory principles

Qualifications, experience and knowledge

You will be able to demonstrate knowledge and experience of the following:

Knowledge and experience of the forestry sector.
Good understanding of commercial business processes and pressures.
Ability to communicate effectively with regulated business and the public, explaining issues and gaining support by influencing.
Extensive knowledge and experience of regulatory and enforcement processes.

Welsh language requirements

Essential: Level 1 – able to pronounce Welsh and use basic phrases

Desirable: Level 3 – Able to communicate with confidence in Welsh in some work situations.

Please note if you do not meet the Welsh language requirements specified i.e., ability to understand basic phrases and ability to pronounce Welsh names correctly, then NRW offers a variety of learning options and staff support to help you meet these minimal requirements during the course of your employment with us.

Competencies

Applications to this role will be assessed based on the following competencies, both at shortlisting and interview. Please give examples of how you demonstrate these competencies when completing your application form.

Essential Knowledge and Skills	Expertise gained in a defined area or function, enabling the post holder to provide advice and guidance to others. Demonstrates a sound understanding and appreciation of the work of the wider function. Has good literacy, numeracy and communication skills including well developed customer facing skills. Experience of supervising others is desirable.
Evaluation of Information	Demonstrates the ability to understand information, procedure manuals, statutory codes and legislation and interpret and apply the requirements to undertake their role. Able to analyse and process non-routine technical information, containing a degree of complexity.
Decision Making and Autonomy Requirements	Ability to decide how best to achieve results, requiring some degree of judgment and creativity and the need to alter priorities where there are conflicting demands. Able to solve problems and make decisions of a technical nature; primarily around their own area of work but will also cross over with the work of others. Problems and decisions may contain a degree of complexity and require the need to apply different techniques or methods. Ability to undertake research to determine how best to resolve issues. Able to provide guidance to less experienced members, to resolve problems.
Impact	The work undertaken is generally within a discrete area, so will primarily affect the direct environment, but may also extend across other subject and work areas. Aspects of the work may also have the potential, if carried out incorrectly, to impact on third parties and a wider area.
Communication and Relationships with Others	Demonstrates the ability to interact and communicate with people around their area of expertise, across a range of functions within NRW and external parties, adapting their approach and style appropriately. Well established inter-personal and communication skills with the ability to develop and sustain good working relationships, which may involve a degree of influencing.

Benefits of working for us

This role will offer a range of benefits, including:

Agile and flexible working (role dependent)
Civil Service Pension Scheme offering employer contributions of 26.6% to 30.3%
28 days annual leave, rising to 33 days
Generous leave entitlements for all your life needs
Health and wellbeing benefits and support
Weekly well-being hour to use as you choose

See full details for all the employee benefits you will receive.

How to apply

Please send a completed application form to: Applications@naturalresourceswales.gov.uk using the post number as the email reference

Before completing your application, please read our Guidance on completing a job application form

Application closing date: 3 April 2023

Interviews will take place through Microsoft Teams

If you have any queries about the role, please contact Callum Stone at callum.stone@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk or 07787 196475

Natural Resources Wales embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunity. We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition.

We welcome and encourage applications from groups currently underrepresented, including women, black and ethnic minority groups and people with a disability. We have a guaranteed interview scheme for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

We put the principles of human rights, equality, fairness, dignity and respect at the heart of our values.

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