Beat Forester – Chilterns

Contents

• Location
• About the job
• Benefits
• Things you need to know
• Apply and further information

Chilterns Office, Upper Icknield Way, Aston Clinton, Aylesbury, Bucks, HP22 5NF

About the job

Job summary

This post is an exciting opportunity to join the Forestry England team in East England. As Beat Forester, you will oversee a small team responsible for managing the nations forests in the Chilterns beat.

About Us

East England Forest District, covers an area of 35,000 hectares from North Norfolk to Brighton; including Thetford Forest and the outlying beats of Sandlings, Kent, East Sussex, Chilterns and Thames Chase Community Forest. The District has a varied landholding including the largest lowland pine forest in England at Thetford, community woodland on the outskirts of London at Thames Chase, and a range of mixed woodland, many of which are on sites of Ancient Woodland.

There are numerous sites of conservation interest designated across the District, including Special Protection Areas to conserve the breeding habitat for the Woodlark and Nightjar, Special Areas of Conservation, Sites of Specific Scientific Interest, Areas of Outstanding National Beauty, Ancient Semi-Natural Woodland, County Wildlife Sites and Scheduled Monuments.

The District offers outdoor recreation, leisure and wellbeing activities for hundreds of thousands of people each year at its recreation centres. Forestry England’s whole freehold estate is dedicated for public access on foot, with numerous small carparks and informal access points.

This post is based at the Chilterns office near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire with a requirement to travel to work in other beat woodlands and on occasion elsewhere in East Forest District. Meetings and training events may take place in other parts of the country.

Job description

Key Work Areas

The main areas of responsibility are to:

• Provide leadership to beat team, focusing on their development needs to support the delivery Forestry & Land Management work programmes and responsibilities.
• Agree, plan, manage and monitor beat economic, social and environmental programmes and projects to achieve District Business plan and Forestry England’s objectives.
• Manage contracts to deliver forest management and timber harvesting objectives, whilst meeting all relevant guidelines and legislation.
• Undertake procurement, contract management, planning, implementation and monitoring of budgets following all relevant guidelines.
• Communicate effectively with colleagues and all stakeholders including landowners, neighbours, contractors, customers and members of the public.
• Work collaboratively with colleagues across the District and wider organisation.
• Monitor and ensure that high standards of health, safety & wellbeing are implemented both within your team and by contractors, ensuring compliance with relevant legislation and guidance.

This is an operational post, working 44 hours per week. The duties of the post require you to be on call at times, and to work a flexible working week.

Responsibilities

You will need personal resilience, and a deep commitment to achieving results with a small beat team.

Your skills, interests and experience will reflect the responsibilities of the role in delivering forest operations and a wide range of land management programmes and projects.

You will be interested in developing your existing technical skills and experience further and be willing to take on new and different tasks.

Person specification

Essential Professional and Technical experience:

• A degree or HND in Forestry or significant equivalent experience in forestry or land management.
• Experience of planning, managing and supervising forestry operations and a good understanding of health and safety in forestry.
• Experience of leading a team and providing support to staff.
• A sound understanding of and experience in contract management.
• Competence in the use of MS Office applications.

Please clearly demonstrate how the above applies to you throughout your application. Failure to do so will mean that your application is automatically sifted out.

Desirable Professional & Technical experience:

• Competence and experience in the use of Forester GIS.
• Membership of the Institute of Chartered Foresters (ICF) or working towards membership.

Behaviours

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Managing a Quality Service
• Communicating and Influencing
• Making Effective Decisions

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £34,080, Forestry Commission contributes £9,201 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• Learning and development tailored to your role.
• An environment with flexible working options.
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.
• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%.

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Reception
• Email : enquiries.eastfd@forestryengland.uk
• Telephone : 0300 067 4500

Recruitment team

• Email : fcerecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Further information

Our recruitment process is underpinned by the principle of appointment on the basis of fair and open competition and appointment on merit, as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles.If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with these principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should in the first instance contact FCE by email: englandhr.services@forestryengland.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, you can contact the Civil Service Commission, which regulates all Civil Service recruitment.

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