Field Manager (Landscape Recovery) in Cannock

The Forestry Commission are the government’s forestry experts and we work to protect, improve, expand and connect England’s woods and forests. We do this by providing policy advice to government and leading delivery through regulation, incentives and protecting tree health. The Environment Act set a target of increasing tree cover in England to at least 16.5% by 2050 and recognition of the benefits that trees and woodlands provide for the environment, society and the economy is increasing. We await the revision of the England Trees Action Plan.

The Field Manager role, as part of Forest Services, is responsible for leading a team of Woodland Officers based in their area and for ensuring the effective coordination of our incentives and regulatory activities. Field Managers play a critical role in delivering a step change in our woodland creation levels, and in supporting the woodland management activity across the area. This includes working closely with Natural England, Environment Agency, Rural Payments Agency, Forestry England and Forestry Commission Admin Hubs. This Field Manager role will also lead on some and help coordinate Landscape Recovery activities across the North West and West Midlands area. You will also work closely with the Areas other Field Managers and local area specialists such as ecologists, deer officers, historical advisors and Land Use Advisors.

Responsibilities

• Team working and Managing People – Provide leadership and support to the Woodland Officers, Landscape Recovery Woodland Officers, Regulations & Incentives Support Officers and Technical Support Officers to ensure the effective delivery of our incentives and regulatory programmes. This includes working alongside Area Operations Managers, attending regular meetings, providing feedback on workloads, prioritising a range of workstream approvals and sharing topical updates with your team including leading local area meetings.
• Delivery of Government aspirations for trees and woodlands - play a key role in supporting the operational delivery Forest Services Business Plan. This includes work to help promote the opportunities of the Forest Service’s Strategic Framework and working with delivery partners.
• Manage Incentives and Regulations – Oversee the delivery of incentives across the area through supporting their area team and partners by building positive working relationships to ensure the effective promotion and delivery of our incentives programme. Including seeking support from technical specialists to process complex cases and influencing the evolution of new initiatives to best deliver government forestry policy. Support with the areas incentives and regulation workload.
• Engaging with stakeholders and partnership working - Work with the Area Management Team to identify the partnerships to engage in order to deliver appropriate sector support in identified priority areas. Developing and maintaining good working relationships with advisers and stakeholders.
• Landscape Recovery specific responsibilities – This role will help ensure a consistent standard of delivery across the nine NW & WM Landscape Recovery (LR) projects and is funded through the Farming Programme (FP). As appropriate the post holder will support and provide guidance to within the Area team and to each LR project team and the farmers and landowners within each LR project.
• Work with the Landscape Recovery (LR) project to adopt a one team working approach with colleagues across the Defra group (Defra, Natural England, Environment Agency, Historic England) to improve both grant design and delivery, ultimately delivering better environmental outcomes. Build and maintain relationships between Forestry Commission’s Landscape Recovery team and FC subject matter experts from other grants, regulations, policy and operational teams. Identify and enable the linkages between scheme design and operational delivery from central government to FC’s national office and area based operational teams. Analyse and manipulate project data, helping to inform Landscape Recovery’s role in reaching Government environmental targets. Semi-regular presentations to a diverse range of internal/external stakeholders.
• Vision and Culture – Support the overall work of the team to ensure the effective delivery of our vision and culture ambition and to help lead on the development of a proactive Health & Safety culture. Play an active role in the wider work of the team including supporting Management and Area Team Meetings.

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