Team Leads – Ports and Shipping Policy 7 views

The Maritime sector is a vital economic enabler for the UK – ports and shipping move 95% of goods into and out of the country. It is estimated that in 2019 the sector directly supported just over £55 billion in business turnover, £18.7 billion in GVA and 227,100 jobs for UK employees. The sector’s direct GVA contribution of £18+ billion is more than the Air and Rail transport industries combined. The maritime sector and government maritime policy will play a significant role in the delivery of this Government’s missions – particularly economic growth, opportunities for everyone and becoming a green energy superpower.

There are two posts available in the Ports and Shipping Division within the Department for Transport’s Maritime Directorate. The ports and shipping team are responsible for championing Ports and Shipping across the department and government in order facilitate their economic contribution to the UK and so our policies have a real positive impact on our sector and the wider economy.

The team is focussed on understanding and overseeing ports and shipping legislation, maintaining close engagement and an in-depth understanding of the sector, their challenges and opportunities and the avenues within Government we can influence on the sector’s behalf to ensure it realises it economic growth potential and enables other sectors to grow and trade.

This is a dynamic team that is in the process of driving forward a number of policy and legislative improvement opportunities for the sector.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

 Head of Port Infrastructure and Connectivity

• Lead the finalisation of and continual update of industry facing guidance, to allow the ports / freight industry to contribute the right types of evidence at the right time into government road and rail investment decision making, to increase likelihood of approval for port related schemes.
• Establishing governance and engagement mechanisms across government / DfT to ensure no opportunities for bettering port transport connectivity are missed.
• Coordinating work with Network Rail colleagues to put together bids for port rail-freight schemes for funding under the Rail Network Enhancement Pipeline, and National Highways colleagues to feed into the Road Investment Strategy.
• Work with road, rail, national highways and network rail colleagues and analysts to continually assess the status of and prioritise the port sector’s long list of road and rail connectivity requirements.
• Lead the work necessary for a high level cost/benefit analysis of port transport connectivity priorities in readiness for the next and future Spending Review.

Head of Autonomous Shipping and Maritime Technology

• Working on ongoing legislation being introduced on maritime legislation as part of the Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) project.
• Considering future options for introducing legislation to support the maritime autonomy sector and lead this work forward while manage a complex network of Government and private sector stakeholders.
• Working with industry, academia, OGDs, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to understand the requirements of the sector on autonomous shipping and developing policy to meet that need.
• Ensuring government intervention is best positioned to stimulate sector growth and innovation.
• Co-ordinate across industry, academia and Government, particularly HMT, DESNZ, DSIT, DBT, DEFRA, the Devolved Administrations, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), and the National Shipbuilding Office (NSO) on autonomy related structures. In particular close working with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, who are technical leads on maritime autonomy.

For more information about the 2 roles, please see the attached Role Profile.

At the point of interview all candidates will be asked for their preferred role. As we will be appointing this role based on merit (offering to the highest scorer first) we will take your preferred working division into consideration, at the point of offer, but please note that this will not be guaranteed.

About you

To thrive in this role, you will

• Enjoy working with energy and pace and have the proven ability to be able to deal flexibly with uncertainty and change.
• Be someone who excels at leading and building a high performing team.
• Need to be adept at working in partnership with a complex network of stakeholders.

Additionally, you will require:

• Excellent analysis and problem-solving skills to design policy positions and intervention approaches across a broad range of issues.
• Sound judgement to make the right calls on policy in a complex environment.
• Demonstrable resilience and calmness under pressure.
• Excellent prioritisation and organisational skills and the ability to keep ‘multiple plates spinning’. You will need to be able to prioritise, whilst maintaining sufficient oversight of the detail of the full breadth of your team’s work.
• Management and leadership skills to provide clear direction for a diverse team through uncertainty, balancing delivery with emotionally intelligent support.

Additional information

A minimum of 60% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace, although requirements to attend other locations for official business, or carry out detached duty in another DfT workplace, will also count towards this level of attendance.

Regular travel to London would be required a few times a week at peak work times, this may include working outside of normal hours on occasion.

Find out more about working within policy at the Department for Transport: https://careers.dft.gov.uk/policy/