Deputy Director Defra Group Fleet Services

Environment Agency

 

Deputy Director Defra Group Fleet Services

 

Reference: 30282

Location: National

Post Type: Fixed Term

Length of contract: Up to April 2026

Working Pattern: Full Time

Salary Minimum: £76,000 Pro-rata

 

If you’re part of the Environment Agency (EA), you’re part of the solution. Working with us means protecting and improving the environment for generations to come. Such a broad scope of work calls for diverse, multi-skilled teams and exceptional leadership.

We’re looking for a Deputy Director to confidently and collaboratively further develop and implement our Fleet Strategy, this role sits within our Corporate and National Services Directorate.

This role is a temporary assignment with the view to go permanent.

You will be commercially minded, decisive, with strong values who is entrusted to inclusively drive the execution of our Fleet Strategy and associated services. You will be key in connecting corporate service performance, ensuring delivery and outcomes meet or exceed expectations and align with the business' strategic vision and objectives. You will have a strong people-oriented mindset that is quality-focused and results-driven with the ability to make decisions that may be unpopular.

You will be responsible for managing a budget of circa. £25m while managing the reputation of the Environment Agency and Defra. You will build strong relationships and collaborate with numerous external partners, to achieve integrated solutions to key fleet issues. You will be required to influence senior internal and external partners and have sound political acumen. A large part of the role will involve the ability to negotiate and manage multi-million-pound contracts to deliver strategic objectives, ensuring the health, safety and legal operation of several high-risk areas of the fleet are a sustained priority.

Responding to incidents is central to what we do. You will be required to have an incident role and make yourself available to respond to incidents or provide business continuity during an incident. Full training will be available.

The team

This is an exciting opportunity, we're looking for a dynamic and transformational leader to lead the implementation of our revised Fleet Strategy on behalf of the organisation.

You will report to the Director of Corporate and National Services, and form part of a welcoming and committed team of senior leaders. You’ll lead a diverse workforce across the UK, strong management and inclusive leadership skills are must-haves. You will work with a community of executive managers.

Experience/skills required

•Experience in leading a dispersed high performing, high impact, functional team, with breadth and depth of both people and budget leadership and management.

•Strong experience of setting the direction and delivering commercially focused asset management and national once services

•Developing a commercially focused asset management strategy, sustainably embedding this across the EA’s Fleet portfolios, and delivering here and now value for money against EA operational and business requirements

•Navigating delivery through others, challenging performance issues and the status quo to ensure Defra group corporate services offer fits requirements, actively manage and assure corporate services delivery

•A strong understanding of effective crisis management and the willingness to learn how to manage national or large-scale incidents and emergencies.

You’ll have excellent communications skills and be a great collaborator/facilitator. You must be passionate about developing others, be innovative in your thinking and possess strong organisational skills.

Experience of Fleet portfolio working is essential.

Contact and additional information

For further information please contact: Dale Eynon, Director, Defra Group Fleet Services or Katie Bonnett, Business Manager, Corporate and National Services at;

Dale.eynon@environment-agency.gov.uk

directorofcorporateandnationalservices@environment-agency.gov.uk

Candidate Assessments will take place face to face. These may include a staff engagement panel. Further details will be provided to shortlisted candidates.

We will be running a virtual candidate briefing session for those interested in applying for the role on Monday 10th February 2025, 1-2pm. Invitations can be acquired by emailing: directorofcorporateandnationalservices@environment-agency.gov.uk . We will also be recording this session should you need this.

There will be some national travel required, Bristol, Birmingham, London and other key sites.

 

Closing date: 23 February 2025, 23:55 hours.