Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
AI Capability and Engagement Officer
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Bristol, London, York
Job Summary
Defra is the UK government department responsible for safeguarding our natural environment, supporting our world-leading food and farming industry, and sustaining a thriving rural economy. Our broad remit means we play a major role in people's day-to-day life, from the food we eat, and the air we breathe, to the water we drink.
Digital, Data, Technology and Security (DDTS) is the trusted team for digital across the entire Defra Group.
We have around 1000 colleagues across DDTS and our ambition is to make it easier and faster than ever for people to interact with Defra. If you are ready to drive innovation and push boundaries, we want to hear from you. Join us and together we will create a great place for living, and a green and healthy future for all.
Find Out More About DDTS:
Job Description
The AI Capability and Engagement Officer will support the effective development, adoption and responsible use of AI across Defra. They will help to build organisational capability and engagement by crafting bespoke content to ensure teams can understand, access and apply AI appropriately and effectively across the department. They will work with business stakeholders to define capability needs, explore gaps and lead on the development of capability and engagement materials that create real impact.
This role feeds into a range of high-profile outcomes, both within the department and across government. It supports the modernisation of DDTS as an innovative, AI-confident digital partner to Defra's policy and operational goals. It further supports Defra’s strategic objectives in enabling responsible and scalable AI adoption over domains such as productivity improvement, regulatory efficiency and environmental outcomes. Finally, it supports the wider transition towards a future-facing, world-class Civil Service that harnesses the best of emerging technologies to transform our ways of working. The role will play an important part in ensuring AI technologies are explainable, relevant and inspiring to colleagues across Defra and its agencies.
The Role Will Broadly:
- Manage stakeholder relationships to understand user needs and business developments as part of a wider AI capability offer
- Work independently on capability materials and guidance, and collaboratively with relevant teams and professions where required
- Have a good understanding of the work being delivered within the AI team, with an ability to communicate this work effectively to other stakeholders
- Develop and share best practice with the wider team and business analysts within DDTS
- Identify opportunities to expand or refine the existing capability offer in collaboration with the AI Strategy Lead and Head of AI Unit
- Ensure that the design of capability and engagement materials are consistent with AI strategy and required services.
Person specification
Responsibilities:
- Create, curate and maintain capability and engagement materials for the AI Unit. This includes time spent in identifying new materials to be developed and drafting and refining them.
- Meet with stakeholders across the Defra group to promote positive collaboration on shared AI capability and engagement. This includes anticipating needs, responding to challenge, managing conflict, and surfacing opportunities for join-up.
- Employ business analysis techniques to identify organisational capability needs and areas for improvement. Translate these into actionable solution proposals with consideration for cost, risks and benefits, and support on implementation where required.
- Use business process improvement techniques to analyse current capability and engagement processes, such as content distribution and approval mechanisms, and propose optimisations to improve the quality and efficiency of future processes.
- Share knowledge with colleagues and wider DDTS communities, and support in upskilling others around capability, engagement and AI. This may include the delivery of presentations, blogs or video content.
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Skills:
This role aligns primarily with the the Business Analyst (HEO) role within the Government Digital and Data profession, with a specialist focus on stakeholder relationship management, user experience and capability development. For further information please see the framework here.
The role works at the intersection of business analysis, communications and user-centred design to develop a compelling capability and engagement offering that supports AI adoption across the organisation. The role is not eligible for the skills supplement, but the following technical skills are relevant and required for the role.
- Context, problem and option analysis: working level.
- Stakeholder relationship management: working level.
- User experience analysis: working level.
Experience:
- A background working in a digital, data, communications, or business analysis environment.
- Prior involvement in content management, knowledge management or engagement activities within an organisation.
- A working-level understanding of AI/data concepts, with an ability to communicate these to others.
Selection process
The Civil Service marks each element of the selection process on a merit basis. You can visit the gov.uk website for further information on the Civil Service rating scale.
Ensure you have tailored your CV and Personal Statement to the 'skills and experience' section of the job advert by providing examples on how you are suitable for the role. Consider using the STAR method which allows you to set the scene, show what and how you did and the overall outcome.
Please ensure you demonstrate clearly, within your personal statement, how you meet these requirements, as the information you provide will form a key part when the panel is scoring your application.
For further information on STAR, you can check out our Hints and Tips document.
Application process
As Part Of The Application Process, You Will Be Assessed On Your experience. This Will Be Evaluated By Looking At Your CV And Personal Statement, So Please Provide The Following And Ensure Your Experience Is Clearly Demonstrated:
- A CV
- A 750 word Personal Statement: Referring to the 'skills and experience' sections of the job advert, please demonstrate how you are suitable for the role by providing relevant examples.
Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.
Sift
Sift will begin shortly after the advert closes.
Should there be a large number of applications, an initial sift will be conducted using your personal statement. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment or interview.
Interview
If successful at sift, you will be invited to an interview where you will be assessed on the Behaviours and Technical Skills listed below, as well as Strengths.
Sift and Interview dates are to be confirmed. Please note that these may be subject to change.
Interviews will be held virtually on Microsoft Teams.
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For further information on Success Profiles, you can visit the links below and watch our videos on DefraJobs.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Communicating and Influencing
- Working Together
- Changing and Improving
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Context, problem and option analysis: working level.
- Stakeholder relationship management: working level.
- User experience analysis: working level.
Salary
Alongside your salary of £34,765, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs contributes £10,071 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).
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 employer contribution of 28.97%
Location
As part of the pre-employment process for this post, successful candidate(s) will be able to agree a contractual workplace from those locations listed in this advert. The agreed contractual workplace is then the substantive and permanent place of work for the successful candidate(s).
Where the location is ‘National’ the successful appointee should discuss and agree an appropriate contractual location in line with both Defra’s location policy and site capacity, prior to proceeding with pre-employment processes.
The agreed amount of time spent at a workplace for this post will reflect the requirement for Civil Servants to spend at least 60% of their working time in an organisation workplace with the option to work the remaining time flexibly from home. Working time spent at a workplace may include time spent at other organisational locations including field-based operational locations, together with supplier, customer or partner locations. This is a non-contractual agreement which is consistent with common Civil Service expectations.
Travel costs to non-contractual workplaces will be subject to departmental travel and subsistence policies. Travel costs to contractual workplaces are the responsibility of the employee.
The successful candidate is required to carry out all their duties from a UK location, and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time.
Defra includes the core department, APHA, RPA, Cefas and VMD.
Further Information
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Reserve list A reserve list may be held for a period of 12 months from which further appointments can be made.
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Childcare Vouchers Any move to Defra from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare; for further information visit the Childcare Choices website.
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Near miss Candidates who are judged to be a near miss at interview may be considered for other positions in Defra which may be at a lower grade, but have a potential skills match.
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Merit Lists Where more than one location is advertised, candidates will be posted in merit order by location. You will be asked to state your location preference on your application.
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Reasonable adjustment If a person with disabilities is put at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.
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