Borough Resilience Forum (BRF) Coordinator in London

Strategy and Communications sits at the centre of the organisation, bringing together several teams with organisation-wide remits and mutual collaboration opportunities. The work of the directorate’s teams includes delivery of major events, designing and leading public affairs or marketing campaigns, providing data, evidence and analysis, leading cross-organisational programmes, to making sure we plan for and can respond to emerging events or emergencies in our city.

About the team

Working with over 170 organisations, the London Resilience Unit delivers and coordinates resilience services across the capital on behalf of the Mayor of London and Local Authorities. London Resilience Unit supports the work of London's key agencies in assessing risks, working to reduce the likelihood or impact of those risks and, where risk can't be eliminated, preparing arrangements to respond, recover and learn from emergencies.

About the role

This role will lead on the coordination, support and continuous improvement of Borough Resilience Forums (BRFs). You will seek to ensure local resilience arrangements are aligned with the London Resilience Forum Strategy, reflect the requirements of the Civil Contingencies Act and ambitions of the UK Government Resilience Action Plan. Success in this role will be demonstrated through stronger resilience capability at the local level, improved consistency across BRFs, sharing and acting on good practice, and greater confidence from London Resilience governance groups in local resilience arrangements.

What your day will look like

In this role you will:

• Develop strong, trusted relationships with BRF Chairs and secretariats to enable effective information flow, peer learning, and issue escalation between borough-level and pan-London structures.
• Directly support BRFs to strengthen their governance, planning, exercising, learning, and partnership coordination.
• Advise, influence, and challenge BRFs on their ways of working, sharing good practice and seeking pan-London consistency.
• Analyse BRF activity and performance to identify themes, risks and emerging issues and prepare high-quality reports and recommendations for London Resilience governance groups, including the London Resilience Forum, Programme Board, and Local Authority Panel.
• Represent London Resilience Unit in relevant meetings, championing the role and value of local resilience arrangements as a fundamental part of London’s resilience system.
• Perform the role in accordance with the GLA’s policies and code of ethics and standards, including health and safety.
• Realise the benefits of London’s diversity by promoting and enabling equality of opportunities and promoting the diverse needs and aspirations of London’s communities.

Skills, knowledge and experience

To be considered for the role you must meet the following essential criteria:

• Excellent interpersonal skills, and proven ability to build strong working relationships with multi-agency partners.
• Excellent written and verbal communications skills, including the ability to communicate complex information through written reports, presentations, and verbal briefings. Well versed in adapting their style to suit the needs of different audiences.
• Proven experience of coordinating partnerships, networks or place-based activity, ideally within resilience, emergency planning, community safety, or other relevant policy area.
• Demonstrated ability to analyse and synthesise information from multiple sources and turn insight into practical recommendations or action plans.
• Understanding of multi-agency working and the role of local government, emergency services, health, voluntary and community sectors in preparedness, response and recovery.
• Ability to work in a consistent manner to agreed standards, identifying both gaps and good practice. Able to facilitate information exchange, targeting areas to support where the capability may be less mature.
• Experience of working across organisational boundaries, ideally with an understanding of London’s resilience governance and risk landscape.

Building & Managing Relationships (Level 1)

• Is developing rapport and working effectively with a diverse range of people, sharing knowledge and skills to deliver shared goals.
• Builds rapport quickly with people at all levels and from different backgrounds.
• Actively listens to others and is open to their ideas.
• Identifies and resolves conflict between self and others.
• Makes others feel comfortable and respected by being positive and friendly.
• Shares appropriate information openly with colleagues within and outside own team.

Stakeholder Focus (Level 1)

• Is consulting with, listening to and understanding the needs of those upon whom our work has an impact; and is using this knowledge to shape what we do and manage others’ expectations.
• Listens to understand requirements without making assumptions.
• Demonstrates an enthusiastic and ‘can do attitude’ to requests.
• Provides timely, accurate and personalised responses.
• Provides a polite and helpful first point of contact for stakeholders.
• Learns from feedback to improve personal service to others.

Communicating and Influencing (Level 1)

• Is presenting information and arguments clearly and convincingly so that others see us as credible and articulate, and engage with us.
• Represents self and team positively within the organisation.
• Speaks and writes clearly and succinctly, using appropriate language that is easy to understand.
• Adapts style and communication to the audience.
• Communicates persuasively and confidently.

Problem-Solving (Level 1)

• Is analysing and interpreting situations from a variety of viewpoints, and finding creative, workable and timely solutions.
• Breaks down work issues, seeking further information if necessary.
• Provides workable solutions to solve immediate work problems.
• Makes suggestions and implements improvements to personal work processes.
• Actively supports new initiatives and tries different ways of doing things.
• Learns from others’ experiences.

This role is based at Palestra (Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8NJ).

If you have questions about the role, the hiring manager Callum Gegg would be happy to speak to you.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

London's diversity is its biggest asset, and we strive to ensure our workforce reflects London's diversity at all levels. We welcome applications from everyone regardless of age, gender, gender identity, gender expression, ethnicity, sexual orientation, faith or disability. We particularly encourage applications from Black, Asian and Minority ethnic candidates and disabled candidates who are currently underrepresented in our workforce. We are committed to being an inclusive employer and we are happy to consider flexible working arrangements. We would welcome applications from candidates who are seeking part-time work as this role is open to job share.

Please note we are a Disability Confident Employer so for candidates who wish to be considered under the scheme and meet the essential criteria, they will automatically be invited to interview. Please note, should you require any adjustments through the process, we will accommodate as much as possible.

GLA staff are hybrid working up to 3 days a week in our offices and remotely depending on their role. As part of this, you will need to split your time between home working and coming into the office.

In addition to a good salary package, you will be paid every four weeks, providing frequent salary payments. We also offer an attractive range of benefits including 30 days’ annual leave, interest-free season ticket loan, interest-free bicycle loan and a career average pension scheme.

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record (DBS) check but some roles may require additional security screening. Please note Post holders must be willing to undergo National Security Vetting to the level of SC. This process requires the post holder to have been resident in the UK for five years.