Natural England
Personal Assistant - ( Ref : 6707 )
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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 Humber
Job Summary
This position is based Nationally
Job Description
Join us in shaping a future where nature and people thrive. Whether you're drawn to hands-on conservation or playing a vital part behind the scenes, your work at Natural England will support lasting benefits for the environment and society.
Our Role
Natural England is the Government’s adviser for the natural environment and the Nature regulator with a wide range of statutory duties and powers. We provide the evidence, expertise and advice to recover Nature and shape better places for people to live. We do this working through and with others.
Strategic Outcomes for Nature
Our strategy is framed through four strategic outcomes. Each of these outcomes reinforces and amplifies the others, and together they address environmental, social and economic actions critical to thriving nature.
- Recovering Nature– Increased scale and quality of places where nature thrives.
- Building Better Places– Greener homes and infrastructure create healthier, more investable places, recognising we live better where nature thrives around us.
- Improving Health and Wellbeing– Build nature into everyday life so people can support, access and benefit from nature, wherever they live.
- Delivering Security through Nature– Nature helps us adapt to the threats of a changing climate and improves our national security, supporting more resilient food production, healthy soils, clean and plentiful water and clean air.
Find out more about the work of Natural England at:
Natural England’s Strategy: Recovering Nature for Growth, Health and Security - GOV.UK
The Role
To provide an excellent service to Natural England’s Directors, working with their senior officer and helping them to operate effectively to deliver organisational objectives and targets that contribute to Natural England’s vision, mission and goals.
You will lead by example to keep Natural England a safe organisation providing expert advice and guidance.
You will support our Board and NEXCO in providing effective direction. Together we will encourage ongoing creativity and innovation needed to assist Natural England develop the tools to achieve our Goals and Objectives.
Key Tasks/Principal Accountabilities
- To develop an in-depth understanding and knowledge of the directors’ key objectives, business priorities and direct reports along with Natural England’s governance structures and processes to provide advice and guidance to others.
- To proactively management of the director’s busy mailbox; prioritising, filtering and responding to requests on their behalf.
- To be responsible for diary management and arranging meetings, 1:1s or telecalls with internal and external customers with a high regard for excellent service.
- To arrange and book travel and hotel accommodation, desks, meeting rooms and conference facilities while demonstrating compliance with ‘Travel, Accommodation and Related Expenses Policy’ and ensuring ‘Health, Safety and Wellbeing’ practices are followed.
- To deal with any issues in the day-to-day role, exercising professional judgement in making recommendations or decisions and escalating issues accordingly.
- To build and sustain effective relationships with a range of internal and external customers based on understanding customers’ needs and priorities, providing advice and guidance and efficient delivery of service to make a positive impact to achieve the best outcomes.
- To actively contribute to continuous improvement of processes, systems, and standards in order to develop new ways of working or suitable solutions that will have a positive impact on work delivery.
- To mentor other newly appointed personal Assistants, as part of your own and their development.
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Knowledge, Skills & Experience
- Use clear and appropriate language, communication styles and techniques that engage your audience.
- Ambitious, identify and adopt ways to make improvements in your team and Natural England and inspire others to act.
- Share expertise and knowledge with people and networks so that you can develop together.
- Respect the diverse needs and experience of other people, be inclusive in everything that you do.
- Listen to and understand our diverse partners and customers so that you achieve the best outcomes for them and Natural England.
- Nurture trusting partnerships and collaborate to achieve pragmatic outcomes that help deliver Natural England’s vision, mission and aims.
- Manage and deliver your work to meet agreed targets and deadlines.
- Handle data responsibly, understand your role in good governance, and comply with delegations, policies and procedures.
- Competent users of Microsoft Office, SharePoint online.
Benefits
At Natural England, we support a healthy work-life balance by offering full-time, part-time, and flexible working arrangements.
We provide excellent opportunities for career progression, training, and development tailored to your role. This includes ten days annually for personal learning and development, plus three additional days for volunteering.
You’ll receive a generous leave allowance of 25 days per year (pro rata), increasing by one day for each year of service up to 30 days (pro-rata), access to the Civil Service Pension scheme with a 28.97% employer contribution, and a range of benefits such as shopping discounts and a cycle-to-work scheme. Staff can also join the Civil Service Sport club for discounts on sports, leisure activities, and social events.
We are committed to fairness, equality, and inclusivity. Our employee-led diversity networks help foster a welcoming environment where everyone feels valued and supported.
Locations
Natural England has adopted hybrid working – which means our staff work from a flexible range of locations, encompassing home, offices (ours and our partners) and relevant sites. All new staff will be formally linked to one of our 25 offices across England, and the expectation is that all new staff will be able to access their local office to be part of the community of staff in their geographical area. Staff are expected to attend their associated office for 20% of their contractual hours.
Staff members are required to carry out all their duties working in this way and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time. Travel expenses will be paid if work-related travel is required but does not apply to travel between home and your associated office.
National team roles can be linked with any Natural England office while Area Team roles will be linked with an office in the relevant geographic area.
View a map of our office locations here: online map of Natural England office locations
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Pay
It is Natural England policy to employ at the entry point of the salary range.
How To Apply
We welcome and encourage applications from all communities. Natural England is accredited to the Disability Confident Scheme, which denotes organisations which have a positive attitude towards disabled people. Disabled applicants who meet the minimum requirements for the role at the shortlisting stage are guaranteed an invitation to interview.
If you require a reasonable adjustment at interview, or there is anything else you would like the panel to take into consideration, you should notify us of this at application stage where possible, or well in advance of your interview. We now provide primary interview questions in advance for all formal recruitments.
This vacancy uses competency-based assessment. We'll assess you against the competencies below during the selection process. Please be aware that we reserve the right for roles that receive a high volume of applications to initially sift applications for one competence only.
Technical Skills and Knowledge
Personal Effectiveness
Putting People at the Heart of the Environment
Work Delivery
When completing the application form you should present relevant examples using the STAR format. Give us an example of how you have demonstrated the competency (which can be work related or from another area of your life) and tell us about the Situation, the specific Task you had to undertake, the specific Actions you took, and the Result (both immediate and in a wider context) of your Action.
Please note that STAR format is not required when answering the Technical Skills & Knowledge competency.
Examples should be given in no more than 250 words for each competency.
If you are successful at the shortlisting stage, you will be invited to attend an interview via MS Teams or a suitable alternative, where you will be asked to give examples for all competencies as set out in the Job Description.
As with all roles in NE, these roles require office attendance of a minimum of 20% of the working time – one day per week for those who work full time, subject to any reasonable adjustments and/or existing contractual homeworking.
Competencies
Competence 1
Professional competency
Detail
Technical Skills and Knowledge
Description
Highly organised, well-motivated self-starter as you will be mainly working unsupervised, and the ability to prioritise workloads and adapt to changeable deadlines. (Essential)
Excellent communicators in both written and verbal form & confident in engaging with senior leaders and customers over the phone and in person. (Essential)
Able to maintain a high level of accuracy and apply very high levels of attention to detail. (Essential)
Competence 2
Professional competency
Detail
Personal Effectiveness
Description
Be ambitious, identify and adopt ways to make improvements in your team and the organisation you represent and inspire others to act. (Practitioner)
Act with integrity, addressing challenging issues and managing conflict through being open and objective. (Basic)
Share expertise and knowledge with people and networks so that you can develop together. (Basic)
Competence 3
Professional competency
Detail
Putting People at the Heart of the Environment
Description
Listen to and understand diverse partners and
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