Veterinary Head of Bovine TB Policy Advice
Animal and Plant Health Agency
Apply before 11:55 pm on Sunday 22nd September 2024
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Salary
In addition, an allowance is paid if you take part in veterinary and where applicable management duty and out-of-hours rota(s) to provide telephone advice and immediate response to incidents and emergencies as required by the business.
Job grade
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Type of role
Veterinary Services
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About the job
Job summary
APHA is a brilliant place to work where our people feel valued, have a voice and can be their authentic selves. We value difference and diversity, not only because we believe it is the right thing to do, but because it will help us be more innovative and make better decisions.
We are looking for people with a passion for leadership, wanting to do interesting and creative roles that help civil servants and public sector leaders to succeed in their roles and support citizens by collaborating across the public sector.
Are you inspirational in your leadership style? Do you operate with a curious mind?
Are you someone who can lead and manage change in a challenging and dynamic environment?
Do you want a role safeguarding standards of animal and plant health and welfare?
If so, why not join us and make a difference.
The agreed amount of time spent at a workplace for this post will reflect the current requirement for Civil Servants to spend at least 60% of their working time in an organisation workplace with the option to work the remaining time flexibly from home.
Job description
We have an exciting opportunity for a veterinary leader to join our Animal Health & Welfare policy advice team as the Veterinary Head of bovine TB Policy Advice. The role is crucial for the development, implementation, and evaluation of Defra’s strategy to eradicate bovine TB (bTB) from England, through the provision of advice and evidence to policy, and support for operational excellence, jointly with the Veterinary Head of bTB Delivery Advice (VHTBDA).
The VHTBPA is accountable for providing veterinary, scientific, and technical advice on bovine TB that is robust, consistent and high-quality. This role will advise and build trust with APHA Senior Leaders, Ministers, the UK Chief Veterinary Officer, Defra bTB Programme, Defra’s Chief Scientific Advisor, key stakeholders (such as the bTB Partnership for England), and the Animal Health and Welfare Board of England.
The role is crucial to the provision of proactive and impartial veterinary and science advice to the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of policies that contribute to bTB eradication in England. It provides senior APHA veterinary representation on strategic boards and at national meetings relevant to bTB control.
This is a varied role, and you will have the flexibility to turn your hand to different tasks as the situation demands. The key responsibilities include, but are not limited to:
Policy Advice and stakeholder engagement:
- To be responsible for leading a highly skilled APHA team of veterinarians and scientists, delivering quality, impartial veterinary and scientific advice on all aspects of bTB eradication in England.
- To build effective, influential relationships across Defra’s bTB Programme, its various Boards, the Chief Veterinary Officer (CVO), and the Chief Scientific Advisor (CSA), and with Defra’s stakeholder networks, jointly with the policy customer, to develop and ensure the ownership and delivery of bovine TB eradication.
- To ensure that APHA and wider government is appropriately and professionally represented at local, national and international level, negotiating and influencing to achieve agreed bTB disease eradication outcomes and organisational priorities.
- To build effective relationships with Other Government Departments and Local Authorities, jointly with the Defra TB Programme, to support working together across areas of joint responsibility and emergency response.
Service Delivery:
- To support Defra in the assessment of delivery, advising Defra TB Programme in the development of robust and meaningful performance indicators for the delivery of TB control programmes and in interpreting the indicator data (intelligent customer function).
- The post holder works in close collaboration with the APHA TB Delivery Advice Team (TB DAT) to support exchange of bTB knowledge and policy detail between APHA Directorates to enable effective decision-making, and that delivery of bTB control measures is consistent with bTB policy intentions.
- To support field delivery in making veterinary decisions where there is high impact and high uncertainty, and policy is unclear or there is policy or political sensitivity ensuring that those decisions are based on the best available evidence.
- To play an important part in the strategic thinking and development of the Agency, ensuring the effective delivery of agreed public and animal health and welfare strategies and policies.
Resilience and Risk Management:
- To ensure readiness to respond in an outbreak by promoting, evaluating, and continually improving business continuity plans and contingency plans for sustaining bTB disease controls during disease emergencies.
- To build resilience capability and succession pipelines both internally and with external contractors and partners.
- To be accountable for providing senior veterinary leadership, decision making and direction for all staff during bTB incidents and in disease emergency situations, representing Defra in dealings with local operational partners, stakeholders, and the media.
- To develop systematic identification, understanding and reporting of area and species / sector level bTB risks and evaluate their likely impact on disease spread and its control ensuring timely and appropriate communication of successes, issues and risks to government, industry, and end-users.
- To maintain an organisational perspective and a global awareness of relevant external factors, risks, emerging science, and developments as they relate to veterinary public health and delivery of organisational priorities.
- To analyse, define and manage the veterinary risks in the agreed area of responsibility to achieve the Governments’ animal health and welfare outcomes and in conjunction with others ensure that the effective deployment of appropriate resources achieves organisational priorities and outcomes under all circumstances.
Leadership and Managing Change:
- Providing, if business needs demand, veterinary leadership and direction for response to incidents and or outbreaks of other endemic or exotic notifiable disease including being available for deployment across GB.
- Delivering the APHA strategy vision in their work area and contributing to the corporate leadership of the Agency.
- The VHTBPA will demonstrate visible, inspiring and authentic leadership, embedding the necessary performance improvements and culture changes in their area.
- Delivering the APHA vision by contributing to the corporate leadership of the Agency and acting as a role model to embed the necessary performance improvements and culture changes in their subject area.
- To provide authoritative, scientifically robust and consistent evidence and advice to the Defra TB Programme, colleagues, partners and important stakeholders on all matters relating to the development and the delivery of TB eradication and control programmes.
- Line management of G7 Veterinary and Science Advisors.
Rotas:
To take part in veterinary and where applicable management duty and out-of-hours rota(s) and to provide telephone advice and immediate response to incidents and emergencies as required by the business. An allowance is payable for this work.
A detailed list of duties can be found in the attachments within this advert.
Person specification
The role requires an individual with considerable understanding of, and experience in strategic disease control, who can translate and communicate complex science clearly to a wide range of audiences from Ministers through to vets, farmers and the general public.
We are looking for candidates who can demonstrate the following essential skills and experience:
- Established networking and influencing ability with customers, partners, stakeholders across Government and industry; sufficient commercial acumen to support delivery of Civil Service priorities.
- Experience of the UK livestock industry, statutory TB disease diagnosis and investigation, threat characterisation, risk management, enforcement and control.
- Experience in communicating and translating scientific evidence to a wide range of audiences.
- Proven track record of working with multidisciplinary teams, overseeing the technical work of others delivering at pace in a pressurised environment.
- Proven track record of strategic veterinary leadership and decision-making during incident and outbreak response, complex case work, contingency planning, and business continuity.
- Proven track record of innovation and leading through a period of transformation.
- Good grounding in epidemiological assessment of disease and disease control programmes.
- Experience in assessment or production of scientific papers/reports.
- Comprehensive working knowledge of GB State veterinary medicine; with a particular emphasis on the development, implementation and evaluation of strategies for the control of bovine tuberculosis, e.g. post graduate training in animal health and infectious disease control or equivalent expertise.
- Inspiring, confident, and empowering leadership, including an ability to lead through change.
- A strategic thinker with analytical and creative problem-solving abilities.
- High level strategic planning, development, prioritisation, and implementation skills.
- Exceptional communication skills via all routes of communication.
- Comprehensive skills, knowledge, and ability in multiple areas of applied state veterinary medicine and veterinary public health; knowledgeable, resilient and authentic.
- Ability to build, coach and develop high performance in teams and individuals, able to support a climate of continuous learning and improvement.
- Ability to set up a network of customers, delivery partners, and stakeholders across Government and industry.
- Highly motivated, corporate, self-aware with high inner resilience and calm under pressure.
- Ability to set up and work within an auditable system of procedures and processes maintaining and assuring appropriate levels of quality assurance and quality control.
- Ability to innovate and work in a flexible and agile way, making use of current technology.
- Securing, maintaining and developing relevant technical expertise.
- Must have demonstrable skills in written and spoken English to enable effective communication about veterinary topics with customers and colleagues.
Learning and Development
Everyone in APHA is supported to develop their skills and capabilities. When you join the Directorate, you will be welcomed into your new team through an induction programme that will provide you with helpful information on the civil service, our work and our policies. Your line manager will also work with you to establish your priorities for the year, developing a performance, learning and development plan tailored to you and your role.
In return for your dedication, we will support your ongoing personal development through appropriate training. Inclusion, support and the development of our people matter to us. We aim to support the career and personal wellbeing of everyone in APHA.
Security clearance
This post is based at a site where the national security of the borders needs to be maintained. For this reason all post holders based at this site must hold a valid Counter Terrorist Check (CTC) security clearance or above. It is up to each person applying for a post which requires CTC or above clearance to ensure they meet the residency criteria. Applicants must be currently resident in the UK & have at least three years continuous UK residency as this is a requirement for these checks, if you cannot meet this criteria CTC clearance will not be possible as this is part of pre-employment checks before taking up the post.
Qualifications
Relevant post graduate qualifications (achieved or in progress).
Memberships
Languages
Must have undertaken undergraduate veterinary training in English; or having a sufficient command of spoken and written English to effectively perform the role being undertaken by a public sector worker in a customer facing role or have achieved the following scores in the academic international English Language Testing System (IELTS) in a single sitting within 24 months at time of application – Overall 7, Speaking 7, Listening 7, Reading 7 and Writing 7.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Leadership
- Seeing the Big Picture
- Changing and Improving
- Communicating and Influencing
- Making Effective Decisions
We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:
- Leadership
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Understanding and experience in strategic disease control.
- Translation and communication of complex science.
- Bovine TB control in England.
Benefits
Further benefits offered also include:
- A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 30.
- An extensive range of learning & professional development opportunities tailored to your role.
- Access to a range of retail, travel and lifestyle employee discounts.
- Staff bonuses and recognition, salary sacrifice benefit options, and an employee discount scheme.
- Making it work for you - With so many flexible options, most people can find a work schedule to suit their circumstances.
These are just a few of our benefits we offer. To find out the full range of what we offer refer to the Information Pack attached for more detail.
Things you need to know
Selection process details
Application Process
As part of the application process, you will be asked to complete a full CV, a 750 Word Personal Statement and 250 Word Behaviour Statement for the Lead Behaviour, Leadership.
Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.
Sift
Should a large number of applications be received, an initial sift may be conducted using the Lead Behaviour, Leadership and the Personal Statement. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift or progressed straight to assessment/interview.
Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.
Interview
If successful at application stage, you will be invited to interview where you will be assessed on your experience, behaviours, and technical skills.
A presentation or additional exercise may also be assessed.
Your interview will either be conducted face to face or by video. You will be notified of the location if you are selected for interview.
Reserve List
A reserve list may be held for a period of 12 months from which further appointments can be made.
Merit Lists
Where more than one location is advertised, candidates will be posted in merit order by location. You will be asked to state your location preference on your application.
Salary
New entrants are expected to start on the minimum of the pay band.
Visa Sponsorship Statement
Please take note that Defra does not hold a UK Visa & Immigration (UKVI) Skilled Worker License sponsor and are unable to sponsor any individuals for Skilled Worker Sponsorship.
Location
Travel to Defra group hubs, including London, is expected.
For most candidates your hours of work will be a blend of working from an APHA workplace (specific to the team location) with working at home.
As part of the pre-employment process for this post, successful candidate(s) will be able to agree a contractual workplace from those locations listed in this advert. The agreed contractual workplace is then the substantive and permanent place of work for the successful candidate(s)
Where the location is ‘National’ the successful appointee should discuss and agree an appropriate contractual location in line with both Defra’s location policy and site capacity, prior to proceeding with pre-employment processes.
Successful applicants currently employed by the hiring Defra organisation for this post may choose to remain in their current contractual location or may choose to change contractual location to one of those listed above. This should be discussed and agreed prior to proceeding with pre-employment processes.
The agreed amount of time spent at a workplace for this post will reflect the requirement for Civil Servants to spend at least 60% of their working time in an organisation workplace with the option to work the remaining time flexibly from home. Working time spent at a workplace may include time spent at other organisational locations including field-based operational locations, together with supplier, customer or partner locations. This is a non-contractual agreement which is consistent with common Civil Service expectations.
Travel costs to non-contractual workplaces will be subject to departmental travel and subsistence policies. Travel costs to contractual workplaces are the responsibility of the employee.
The successful candidate is required to carry out all their duties from a UK location, and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time.
Defra includes the core department, APHA, RPA, Cefas and VMD.
Reasonable Adjustment
If a person with disabilities is put at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.
If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:
- Contact Government Recruitment Service via defrarecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.
- Complete the “Assistance required” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.
Accessibility
If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.
Criminal Record Check
If successful and transferring from another Government Department, a criminal record check maybe carried out.
In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service/ Disclosure Scotland on your behalf. However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing Pre-EmploymentChecks.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk stating the job reference number in the subject heading.
For further information on the Disclosure Scotland confidential checking service telephone: the Disclosure Scotland Helpline on 0870 609 6006 and ask to speak to the operations manager in confidence, or email Info@disclosurescotland.co.uk
Internal Fraud Database Check
Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant’s details held on the IFD will be refused employment.
A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5-year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.
Childcare Vouchers
Any move to Defra from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk
NSV
For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the following page https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/demystifying-vetting
Higher Security Clearance
Please be aware the levels of national security clearance are changing which may impact on the level needed for this role by the time of appointment. All efforts will be made to keep candidates informed of any changes and what that will mean in terms of vetting criteria. For more information please See our vetting charter.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
Medical
Nationality requirements
Working for the Civil Service
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
Diversity and Inclusion
Apply and further information
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name : Recruitment Hub Team - Kay Edwards
- Email : recruitment.sdd@apha.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email : defrarecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Further information
Government Recruitment Services via email: defrarecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission: Click https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/contact-us/ to visit Civil Service Commission.
