Head of Corporate Sustainability – Swansea

At the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), we encourage applications from everyone, particularly groups currently underrepresented in our workforce. We pride ourselves on the positive impact diversity has and promote inclusivity and equality of opportunity for all. Our recruitment process is anonymised, which means that your name, date of birth and other personal details will not be seen by the sift panel.

Are you an effective leader?

Do you have experience of working within the sustainability profession at a strategic level?

Are you motivated with a passion for driving continuous improvement strategies?

If so, we’d like to hear from you!

Reporting to the Head of Centres of Excellence, this role will drive the development and delivery of DVLA’s Sustainability, Environmental and Compliance activities, including the Sustainability Management Plan. This role requires working across DVLA and other Government stakeholders, building a culture of sustainability innovation and implementation. Continuous improvement will be a key theme of this role and the role holder will be required to consider both internal and external factors which will shape and improve sustainable strategy across the department.

Key Responsibilities will include:

• Development of an overarching action plan and programme to deliver the strategic objectives and outcomes including meeting the Greening Government Commitments and developing and delivering a Net Zero programme.
• Developing, managing and maintaining an overall Sustainability action plan to deliver the strategy and ensure appropriate policies, standards and targets are in place and communicated across the organisation and suppliers.
• Working across the organisation to ensure that Sustainability objectives are fully integrated into the delivery models of each Directorate.
• Leading and managing the Sustainability team (team of 5), ensuring they have the right skills, capability and training to undertake their roles.
• Ensuring the team and supply chain have the right skills, capabilities, objectives and resources to meet objectives and performance manage these to ensure delivery against these objectives.
• Advising the DVLA Executive Team and DfT on all aspects of sustainability ensuring an appropriate level of understanding of the compliance requirements, risks, and activities to deliver the DVLA Sustainability Objectives.
• Maintaining and developing the ISO14001 Environmental Management accreditation which the Agency currently holds.
• Accountable for the overall data, MI and reporting related to Sustainability, driving continuous improvement.

Further information and responsibilities can be found in the attached Role Profile.

To be successful in this role, you will be an effective communicator with the ability to build relationships with a variety of stakeholders.

You will have leadership experience and will be able to demonstrate extensive experience of previously working within the sustainability profession at a strategic level. You will also have previous experience of working with accreditations such as ISO14001.

You will have had exposure of working towards strategic objectives and delivering commitments in line with programme requirements.

An important element of the role will be continuous improvement and so you will have previous experience of driving improvements and changes to process and strategies.

You will have also have excellent knowledge of current legislation relating to sustainability.

Further Information

Whilst we welcome applications from those seeking part time employment, please note, that the successful candidate will be required to work a minimum of 35 hours per week (over a 5 day period).

You may be required to travel at times to other sites to attend team meetings but this will be on an infrequent basis.

This role will be based in Swansea, and we will be operating a hybrid working model that allows you to work between home and on-site giving you greater flexibility about where and when you work, subject to business needs and this also allows for ongoing support, development, and collaboration with colleagues.

Therefore, the expectation is that you will spend a minimum of 40% of your working time based at your principal workplace (DVLA). We would encourage you to discuss the working arrangements for this role with us during the recruitment process.

We strive to ensure that DVLA is a great place to work where everybody can be their true self, be treated with dignity and respect, and according to their individual needs. We have a number of staff network groups run by staff to support their colleagues.

Due to the evolving nature of the business, vacancies can become available at any time. Therefore, this campaign may create a reserve list to fulfil demand if it arises which will be held for a period of 12 months.

Holds appropriate accreditation for responsibilities aligned to this core role e.g. MIEMA for core sustainability operations roles, MCIEEM for Ecologists, MEI for Energy Managers, CIWM or CIWEM for waste managers, MIES for environmental sciences, Chartered Forester for Foresters etc

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

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

Being part of our brilliant Civil Service means you will have access to a wide range of fantastic benefits.

• Best in class learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance
• Generous average employer contribution of 27%, depending on rate of salary and chosen pension scheme
• 25 days holiday, increasing by one day each year up to 30 days pro rata
• Access to the staff discount portal
• 24-hour Employee Assistance Programme providing free confidential help and advice for staff

There are many more opportunities and great benefits of working at DVLA, visit our Careers website for further information.