Technical Support Officer - East & East Midlands

Our work involves engagement with an enormous range of people and organisations, from small landowners and wood business through to large corporations and other public bodies. We are seeking a dynamic individual who learns quickly to provide Technical Support to our Woodland Officers, Woodland Creation Officers and Field Managers.

The post holder will be required to:

• Casework Facilitation - provide Technical Support to East & East Midlands Field Team to help optimise the deployment of their skills and knowledge:
• Prepare electronic Forestry Commission case files on local network, including SharePoint.
• Download applications for various schemes;
• Work with National Office on scheme changes and communicate to the field teams;
• Prepare template documentation for Field Team;
• Prepare supporting information to ensure Woodland Officer’s field inspection time is optimised;
• Support Woodland Officers in consultation with statutory consultees on schemes such as Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA’s);
• Maintain a ‘rolling’ progress report including local Trackers on all casework for Field Managers; and Support Field Managers in uploading approved case files;
• Creation of local reports to meet operational need;
• Maintain year to date report for Area director and Ops managers;
• Updating and keeping Forestry Commission National Office or Area Team local trackers up to during the life of the grant, regular audits of trackers to make sure data is correct;
• Support field team with updates to Forester GIS (the Forestry Commission internal mapping system).
• Support field team with updates to National regulations and process changes;
• Assisting with Woodland Management Plan administration with the Woodland Officers.
• Felling License and Restocking Notice compliance inspections: Preparing files for Woodland Officer’s to undertake these inspections. Supporting area to meet National Office deadlines;
• Support a review and reorganisation of electronic filing of Grant and Regulations records and information for the area team.
• Provide basic admin support including dealing with phone queries from the public surrounding felling of trees and felling license’s.

While most of the work is administrative the post offers an opportunity to learn how trees, woods and forestry deliver a range of environmental, social and economic benefits and how Government supports this.

Person specification - 

Essential:

• Good computer skills with experience of Office 365 and MS.
• Excellent communication skills both written and verbal.
• Experience of delivering quality services to a diverse customer base.
• Demonstrate previous examples of delivering work in a specific time frame
• Experience as working as part of a team.
• Ability to prioritise and manage a varied workload.
• Good interpersonal and influencing skills demonstrating the ability to build and maintain effective working relationships with internal colleagues and our customers.
• A minimum of 5 GCSEs/Standard Grades or equivalent (A-C Passes) including Maths and
• English/English Language is required.

Desirable:

• Understanding of forestry and woodland management.
• Evidence of maintaining Continuous Professional Development.
• Advanced experience in the use of Excel, such as the use of pivot tables.

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.