London Surface Water Project Officer

1

South East

London

Staff Grade 5

Permanent

Full Time

Environment & Sustainability, Operational Delivery, Policy, Strategy, Project Delivery

£37,462

This is a unique experience to join a high-profile dynamic project as the lead project officer that will shape a new vision and strategy to help reduce surface water flood risk for communities in London.

Surface water (flash) flooding is the greatest flood risk facing London. The risk is increasing due to the combined challenges of climate change, population growth and the loss of permeable landcover in the capital.

The London Surface Water Strategic Group was set up following severe flash flooding affecting the city in 2021. The Strategic Group is responsible for a programme of improvements to address this. It comprises senior-level representatives from London’s Lead Local Flood Authorities and other organisations with a flood risk management or strategic governance role.

This is an exciting and important new role that will deliver project outcomes for this group to ensure it meets its overall objectives.

Overall duties will include:

• Strategic leadership of short term workstreams across London
• Project management of consultants employed to deliver work
• Working closely with the Officer Group to enable delivery of the London Surface Water improvements plan
• Building relationships and engaging with the Strategic Group and external stakeholders
• Collating project recommendations to take forward and track progress against these
• Collating summaries of projects that are already in progress and working on separate stand-alone actions that the Group want to ensure are taken forward, such as developing a website for the group

This role will be hosted by the Environment Agency in the London Flood Risk Team and will report to the London Surface Water Officers Group which is a team of representatives from London’s Lead Local Flood Authorities and other organisations with a flood risk management or strategic governance role, including the Greater London Authority (GLA), London Councils, Thames Water and Transport for London.

It will be important to have:

• Working knowledge of Surface Water Flash Flooding and the issues and barriers it faces in governance, strategy evidence, funding, and communications.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills to build effective working relationships with different organisations quickly and.
• Ability to present complex and technical information in a succinct language to a non-technical audience.
• Knowledge of the organisations with involvement in working in London and of the complexity it faces.
• Proven experience of working collaboratively with a range of organisations to achieve results.
• Experience in leading workstreams and producing technical reports.

It will be advantageous to have:

• Experience of delivering flood risk management and/or engineering projects and.
• Experience of managing consultants and awareness of contact management / procurement processes.
• Awareness of all available funding streams for delivery of public sector flood risk schemes

The post holder will primarily work at the Greater London Authority offices in Southwark and the Environment Agency London offices in Westminster. It may also be a requirement to occasionally work at other London offices to support delivery of the project.

We offer a flexible working policy including some days working at home if business need allows.

To find out more about the role please contact
Shelley.Formstone@environment-agency.gov.uk or call 07776 226594