Catchment Partnerships Development Officer

Salary: £32,855- £38,105 dependent on experience (Officer Band B).
Contract length: One-year, full-time position with the possibility of extension.
Location: Oxfordshire/ Berkshire/ Buckinghamshire.
This is a flexible, hybrid position with a mixture of working from home, 2 days a week in Thames21’s regional office (Wheatley/Oxford), travel to Thames21’s main London office once a month; and site visits across Thames21 catchment areas, as required.
Responsible to: Catchment Manager

About Thames21

Thames21 is an environmental charity that works across London and the Thames Basin to deliver high-impact, nature-based solutions to the climate and biodiversity crisis by restoring rivers, while also connecting communities to their local green-blue spaces and inspiring long-term stewardship of them.

Diversity at Thames21

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at Thames21 is key to our success and as such we employ staff from a diverse range of backgrounds, this we feel is key in ensuring that everybody has an equal opportunity and is not treated differently or discriminated against because of their characteristics. We value the voices of our individual employees, and we strive to work in a collaborative, innovative balanced way. The postholder must actively support this.

Purpose of the job

This post will form part of Thames21’s Catchment Partnership team. The successful candidate will host/ co-host river catchment partnerships and will be responsible for each partnership’s strategic development and expansion, working towards the successful delivery of the Catchment Based Approach (CaBA) to improving rivers.

You will work with multiple stakeholders and communities to manage and deliver river improvement projects across Oxfordshire and the mid-Thames region. This role is instrumental in developing and delivering a suite of projects, from citizen science water quality schemes to river habitat restoration and natural flood management, helping to implement Thames21’s vision and 5-year plan for healthy, thriving rivers across the Thames Basin.

Main duties and responsibilities:

The officer will be expected to deliver across five priority areas:

1. Deliver small-scale river improvement projects
   To deliver small-scale natural flood management, invasive species removal and habitat restoration projects, often with the aid of our volunteers and external contractors. You will also co-ordinate our citizen science water quality testing network in the region.
2. Develop diverse, representative, collaborative and delivery focused partnerships
   To work autonomously and proactively to seek out and positively engage strategic stakeholders within each catchment area, building the influence and capacity of the Catchment Partnership network to deliver improvements for rivers and local communities. These stakeholders will include (but not limited to) community groups, landowners, eNGOs, local authorities, government agencies, citizen scientists and water companies.
3. Work with partnership networks to identify, develop and fundraise for river catchment improvement projects
   To draw on their knowledge of what makes a river catchment healthy to develop ambitious and impactful catchment improvement project proposals that meet the targets of Thames21’s 5-year plan and the relevant catchment plan. Once identified, the successful candidate will be required to work with relevant Thames21 teams and external partners to successfully fundraise for the development and delivery of these projects.
4. Bring together identified projects into detailed, deliverable catchment and sub-catchment plans, monitoring progress against these.
   The catchment partnership officer will be responsible for developing deliverable project proposals, catchment and sub catchment plans that draw together projects identified across the catchment/sub-catchment area with landowner and stakeholder support. These plans will clearly articulate priority projects required for delivery to external readers. Where necessary, the catchment partnership officer may be required to support and lead on the delivery of river improvement projects, managing project deadlines and budgets.
5. Break down silos by sharing information and bringing people together; in a way that is catchment wide, cross boundary and across multiple organisations.
   The catchment partnership officer will be expected to share knowledge, news, funding opportunities and project progress between stakeholders through meetings, site visits, email newsletters and quarterly meetings of the whole Catchment Partnership (which the Officer will have the responsibility of arranging, coordinating and chairing, including the production of agendas, minutes and actions). The catchment partnership officer will be expected to communicate the work of their catchment partnership networks externally at relevant forums, including the Thames Catchment Forum and strategic community events.

Other Duties

This job description cannot cover every issue or task that may arise within Thames21. At various times the post-holder will be directed to carry out other reasonable duties in support of other Thames21 activities that are consistent with those in this Job Description.