Principal Officer - Development Plan Delivery - ( Ref : 6389 ) in London

This is an exciting opportunity to join a busy team at the forefront of delivery, as Natural England seeks to deliver major government planning reforms, supporting our ambition for a healthy natural environment that underpins sustainable growth, supporting greener homes and infrastructure that create healthier nature-rich places for people to live, learn, work and play.

The Major Planning Casework Team sits within National Delivery and provides national leadership, coordination and support for Natural England’s engagement with major planning casework, including development plans, nationally significant projects and other complex, high-risk casework. The team works across the organisation and external partners to ensure planning systems support nature recovery and achieve Natural England’s ambition for thriving nature for people and planet.

Development plans (Local Plans and Spatial Development Strategies) represent some of Natural England’s most strategically important planning work, shaping the future of places before development proposals come forward. National Delivery plays a critical role in overseeing a pipeline of development plan work delivered by area teams, ensuring we provide high-quality, timely advice, prioritising our resource and enabling growth and nature recovery through strategic advice.

The Role

This is a new leadership role providing national oversight, operational coordination and strategic direction for the delivery of Natural England’s development plan work within National Delivery.

• Champion development plan work as a key mechanism for nature recovery, promoting the value of proactive plan-shaping internally and externally.
• Lead national oversight of a pipeline of Local Plans and Spatial Development Strategies (SDS), ensuring Natural England has a clear, coherent understanding of scale, timing, risks and opportunities across England.
• Ensure prioritisation and resourcing of development plan casework across Natural England, making sure that specialist time is deployed where it adds most value.
• Provide leadership and assurance on development plan delivery, ensuring consistent approaches, high-quality advice, and effective risk management across the delivery.
• Act as the national coordination point, working with Area Team leads, specialists, Operations Managers, and Strategy colleagues to ensure that the organisation is aligned and that development plan commitments are delivered.
• Support and guide Area Teams, providing escalation routes, setting expectations and enabling teams to deliver high-impact, evidence-led advice on plan-making.
• Drive improvements to operational systems, including forward planning, tracking tools, prioritisation frameworks, and national standards for development plan casework.

The role requires strategic operational leadership, excellent judgement, strong stakeholder engagement skills, and deep understanding of the opportunities plan-making offers for nature at landscape scale.

Key Accountabilities

• National Oversight and Strategic Coordination
  • Provide strategic oversight of a national development plan pipeline, including complexity, risk, deadlines and resourcing needs, ensuring a clear organisational understanding of priorities.
  • Lead the national coordination of operational delivery, ensuring Area Teams and specialists work in a coherent and aligned way to meet statutory deadlines, manage risks and secure the best outcomes for nature.
  • Use insight and evidence to anticipate capacity and capability pressures, advising senior leaders on future resource, capability and organisational needs relating to development plan delivery.
• Resource Planning and Deployment
  • Ensure the effective deployment of finite specialist capacity (ecology, strategic planning specialists, modelling, species experts etc.), making clear decisions on priorities between plan-making and development management casework.
  • Maintain oversight of workloads across Area Teams, actively directing or rebalancing resource where necessary to support timely, high-quality plan advice.
• Leadership, Assurance and Quality
  • Provide visible leadership by championing high standards of advice in development plans and providing senior guidance to teams dealing with complex or contentious issues.
  • Ensure consistent application of Natural England’s strategic priorities as set out in our new Strategy, operational standards, governance requirements, and technical advice in plan-making.
  • Oversee escalation routes and ensure significant risks are identified, managed and communicated.
• Partnership Working and Engagement
  • Work closely with Specialists, Strategy colleagues and Area Teams to align approaches, share insight and maintain a consistent national position on development plan issues.
  • Build strong relationships with external partners including local planning authorities, the Planning Inspectorate and other partners as appropriate.
  • Represent Natural England in internal and national networks, promoting improvement, innovation and learning.
• Continuous Improvement and Future-proofing
  • Support and advise on the development and improvement of national standards, guidance, tools and processes for development plan casework.
  • Identify future challenges, opportunities and reforms.

Knowledge, Skills And Experience

• Member of Royal Town Planning Institute (desirable but not essential).
• Strong strategic understanding of the Town and Country Planning system, with extensive experience in development plans, Strategic Environmental Assessment and Habitats Regulations Assessment.
• Ability to lead and influence across organisational boundaries, supporting colleagues at all levels.
• Proven experience in operational leadership, including oversight of complex pipelines, prioritisation and the deployment of scarce specialist resource.
• Excellent judgement and ability to manage complex, high-risk planning issues.
• Strong ability to build partnerships and influence internal and external stakeholders.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to convey complex issues confidently and clearly.
• Understanding of Natural England’s strategic ambitions and how development plans can deliver nature recovery at scale.

Technical Skills and Knowledge

• Deep knowledge of relevant planning legislation, development plan processes and environmental assessment. (Essential)
• Ability to interpret and apply policy to shape national approaches and set standards. (Essential)

Leading and Managing People

• Encourage, inspire and support people to be ambitious, creative and innovative, and to reflect, celebrate and learn lessons from their work. (Expert)

Putting People at the Heart of the Environment

• Nurture trusting partnerships and collaborate to achieve pragmatic outcomes that help deliver Natural England’s vision, mission and aims. (Expert)
• Work proactively and collaboratively with stakeholders and partners to identify and secure opportunities to deliver gains for people and nature. (Expert)
• Build relationships and effective networks both externally and internally to bring in fresh perspectives, approaches and evidence to raise the profile of both your individual specialist work and that of Natural England. (Expert)
• Understand the external influences affecting Natural England and assess the implication to the function e.g. Defra Policy, arms length body reviews. (Expert)

Personal Effectiveness

• Share expertise and knowledge with people and networks so that you can develop together. (Expert)
• Identify, share and promote best practice and lessons learned to create a culture of learning that supports continuous improvement. (Practitioner)
• Make and explain objective decisions which combine your professional judgement and evidence. (Expert)
• Use clear and appropriate language, communication styles and techniques that engage your audience. (Expert)
• Use relevant internal and external networks to exchange information. (Expert)

Work Delivery

• Manage and deliver your work to meet agreed targets and deadlines. (Expert)
• Understand and apply relevant policy, legislation, governance frameworks and strategies to your work. (Expert)
• Clearly define roles, responsibilities and accountabilities and establish controls to monitor project progress and compliance. (Practitioner)
• Recommend how resources should be allocated to optimise the return on investment and support Natural England's mission and vision. (Practitioner)
• Understand and be able to interpret relevant international, national and local legislation, Conventions, byelaws statutory guidance and policy. (Expert)