Operations Team – Programme Supervisor

Westcountry Rivers Trust is recruiting a Operations Team Programme Supervisor.

This is a permanent contract after a successful 6 month probation period.

The starting salary for this role is between £30,000 and £36,000 per annum (dependent on
experience).

The role is 37.5 hours per week.

There will be the opportunity to work from home in this role and work flexible hours. Travel to
sites throughout the Westcountry will also be required regularly; this role is a mixture of
office and site based.

About the Westcountry Rivers Trust

Formed in 1994, the Trust was established to restore Westcountry rivers. Measures to protect
rivers can help to save money for farmers, lower costs for water companies, boost tourism,
reduce the need to dredge estuaries and even benefit human health. Everything the Trust does is
informed by the best available science. Their work is driven by an ‘ecosystems approach,’
considering the function of the entire catchment, not just the rivers that flow within them.

Today the charity works with a wide range of stakeholders from landowners to local communities,
businesses, farmers and water companies to restore and protect the rivers, lakes, estuaries and
coastal areas for the benefit of people, wildlife and the local economy. There has never been a
more important time to work on the rivers of the West Country as the impacts of climate
emergency and the ecological crisis is forcing society to invest in building catchment
resilience.

Spurred by a shared love of rivers, the Westcountry Rivers Trust is very much a grassroots
organisation, brought into existence from the bottom up. In the early 90s, a group of
individuals, passionate – but concerned – about the waterways around them, began to stitch
together their ambitions for restoring Westcountry rivers, laying the foundations for the Trust
we know today.

Everything the Trust does is informed by the best available science. Their work is driven by an
‘ecosystems approach,’ considering the function of the entire catchment, not just the rivers
that flow within them.

It was this new perspective – not to mention the hands-on and tireless approach to river
restoration – that grabbed the attention of so many supporters and funders and which lies
behind the flourishing rivers trust movement. Since then, the Trust now has circa 75 employees
with an annual turnover of c£3m running multi-annual projects spread across a wide range of
funders.

The Trust has three main delivery teams and a support services team. Our employees work on
delivery sites, from home and from the office. Following the pandemic we have moved to a hybrid
way of working and it is important that our IT enables and supports this change.

The Role

Are you looking for a role where you can work with a positive and forward-thinking organisation
to deliver tangible benefits, demonstrable change and increase the resilience of our rivers and
freshwater ecosystems in the South West? Do you have skills and experience in project
management, the safe delivery of site-based work of varying scales and technicality, and a
passion for managing and mentoring a team of wonderful people to enact real change on our river
systems throughout the Westcountry?

As project delivery specialist contractors and consultants in the freshwater environment, the
Operations Team undertakes and supports the in-house delivery of a range of projects delivered
either directly by the team or supported by our trusted sub-contractors. The type of project
outputs, monitoring and interventions we deliver and oversee consist of, but aren’t limited to,
bankside and in-river habitat management such as arboricultural work, wetland creation,
protection and restoration, tree planting and woodland creation, gravel augmentation, natural
flood management (NFM) and other nature-based solution (NBS) opportunities, floodplain
restoration and reconnection, weir removals and modifications, electrofishing monitoring,
catchment walkovers, gravel audits, invertebrate monitoring, arboricultural and ecological
surveys, supporting applications to countryside stewardship and the England woodland creation
offer (EWCO), training and development, and specialist work in protected and sensitive sites.

This role will contribute to the effective delivery of the broad programme of work undertaken
by our Operational Team at WRT across a range of projects. Supporting the Operations Manager
and Operational Team by taking the lead on a range of project and programme management,
internal and external engagement, and enabling processes which assist our good work to be
delivered. This role will support development of the team and Trust during an exciting period
of growth and opportunity, enabling the delivery of projects and encouraging the environmental
resilience and sustainability of our catchments throughout the South West.

Key responsibilities include:

• Support the Operations Team and other departments at WRT with managing the effective
  delivery of our work programme across a range of projects at the Trust, including the provision
  of technical experience and knowledge where appropriate.
• Supporting other project and team managers with a range of outputs, providing realistic
  timeframes and cost estimates to develop a schedule of project activities and key milestones to
  achieve project objectives.
• To highlight and manage risks, issues, and changes to the work programme.
• Work with the Operations Manager and H&S lead to identify skills gaps and develop
  appropriate training programmes.
• To maintain, interrogate and regularly update work schedules, deliverables, budget or
  activity logs and extracting information for reporting, in liaison with the Operations Manager
  and team.
• Managing project budgets and team expenditure, checking invoices, costings on proformas and
  financial information from suppliers.
• Prepare and review essential project-related paperwork such as Risk Assessments, Method
  Statements, Site Assessments and Surveys, reports and collation of material and data.
• To build positive relationships and liaise regularly with colleagues and external partners
  or organisations.
• Support with events, meetings, and workshops.
• To attend formal and informal training and develop relevant knowledge and skills (CPD) as
  appropriate.
• May be required to carry out other duties from time to time commensurate with the level of
  the post.
• Maintain appropriate confidentiality of information relating to WRT and its employees and
  maintain compliance with the UK GDPR.

Essential Criteria: 

• Experience working in a project and site-based setting, including planning and delivering a
  portfolio of work and managing sites in a multi-task environment.
• Strong administration skills with a desire to continually improve and streamline processes.
• A proactive approach and ability to use initiative and problem solve, with a strength in
  the logistical management of a team and multiple workloads.
• The ability to work accurately with a high attention to detail.
• The ability to work to manage your workload and meet deadlines, managing conflicting
  demands and working effectively to deadlines with minimum supervision.
• Experience managing/mentoring people effectively and planning workloads across a team to
  ensure objectives are delivered.
• Effective verbal and written communication with the ability to build positive working
  relationships.
• Demonstrable experience working with MS Office suite, especially Word and Excel.
• Formal education to Level 2 (GCSE Maths and English to grade C or equivalent).
• Experience working with or performing appropriate desk-based and site surveys for statutory
  designations, species and habitats, services (above and below ground), historic environment
  features or similar.
• A knowledge and understanding of biosecurity and NNIS in relation to identifying and
  managing these on-site.

Desirable Criteria: 

• Previous experience working in a forestry/arboricultural, agricultural or
  construction-based environment or similar.
• Experience working with Health and Safety policy, process and site-based documentation.
• Membership of a relevant professional organisation.
• Higher level site supervision/management or other H&S qualification.
• Degree-level qualification in a subject relevant to the environmental sector.

Benefits:

• 25 days Annual Leave
• 9% Employer Pension

Apply by midnight on Sunday 14th April 2024.

Interviews will be held in person at our offices in Stoke Climsland on Tuesday
23rd April 2024.