FSA offices in London, Cardiff, York or Birmingham. Site-enabled, multi-location or home-based. Regular travel primarily to London (as well as other parts of the UK) required on a regular basis. Due to COVID-19 our teams are temporarily home based, and travel is not expected. When business returns to normal the successful candidate will be expected to fulfil these obligations (a conversation will be held about appropriate work contract).

About the job Summary

The FSA is a non-ministerial department of over 1300 people, with a big vision – to drive change in the food system so that it delivers “food we can trust” - as the country has now left the EU, the scale of this challenge cannot be underestimated. More than 90% of food and feed law in the UK currently comes from Europe and our primary goal is to continue to protect public health and UK consumers’ wider interest in food.

This role sits in the Trade Policy Advice Team in the Food Policy Directorate, the main function of which is to develop legislation, regulatory approaches and provide risk management capability to protect consumers, ensuring that food and feed is safe, and what it says it is.

The Trade Policy Advice Team advocates for FSA’s core values and policies across government, leading on FSA engagement and provision of policy advice on food and feed safety issues to government departments developing the UK’s trade policy. The post holder will be responsible for coordinating FSA input to global trade negotiations, positively engaging with internal and external stakeholders; supporting FSA colleagues to meet new international WTO obligations in policy making; and advising/briefing the FSA Negotiations Group / Senior staff on trade related issues.
The post holder will need to support and lead parts of the FSA’s work to develop future working arrangements and ensure that the FSA is able to make timely contributions to the centrally driven and politically sensitive cross-government work in this area.

Job description

Role responsibilities include:

- Build and maintain an effective network of stakeholders within the FSA and other relevant government departments to ensure that the FSA is engaged on the development of relevant trade policy.
- Lead on FSA Trade Policy Advice workstreams, ensuring that the FSA is prepared to engage effectively with OGDs leading on global trade negotiations.
- Ensure FSA food and feed safety input to trade policy development is in line with the FSA’s principles of engagement on trade and reflects views of our devolved offices.
- Ensure own and teams activities reflect wider FSA strategic priorities and show awareness for the government-wide perspective.
- Show leadership when engaging across a range of contacts within FSA and OGDs, making links to ensure the FSA is engaged as appropriate.
- Strengthen the team’s support for the work of the FSA EU Transition Programme, ensuring consistency on cross-cutting issues and foster collaboration where appropriate.
- Take responsibility for delivery of workstreams within timelines including updating/briefing senior civil servants on developments and future milestones.
- Support colleagues to ensure FSA meets World Trade Organisation obligations in policy making.
- Oversee opportunities for FSA colleagues to increase capability on trade –keep abreast of relevant trade developments and identify opportunities for FSA to provide information and expertise.
 

Responsibilities

As someone with pride and passion for public service, you’ll recognise the wider Civil Service priorities and always work in the national interest. You’ll seek out opportunities to create effective change and suggest innovative ideas for improvement. You’ll use evidence and knowledge to support accurate, expert decisions and advice. You’ll value difference, diversity and inclusion, ensuring fairness and opportunity for all.

Please read the attached Candidate Pack to discover further details about the role, our organisation, who we are looking for and the criteria we will assess against during the selection process. We look forward to receiving your application and wish you every success.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together
• Changing and Improving
• Delivering at Pace

Benefits

Our candidate pack details the benefits that the FSA has to offer. Please also refer to the attached Terms and Conditions statement.