Joint Head of the Office of the Chief Economist

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is the UK government department responsible for safeguarding our natural environment, supporting our world-leading food and farming industry, and sustaining a thriving rural economy. Our broad remit means we play a major role in people's day-to-day life, from the food we eat, and the air we breathe, to the water we drink. 

This role is to jointly lead Defra’s Office of the Chief Economist. The Office of the Chief Economist (OCE) is a team of around twenty economists working on cross-cutting and strategic projects for Defra. The role will be based in Defra’s central, multidisciplinary team, the Analysis and Insight Division (AID). AID has a key, strategic role to play in leading on cross cutting issues and ensuring that high quality analysis is driving Defra’s strategy, policy and ways of delivering, including directly supporting Defra’s Director of Analysis, who is also our Chief Economist. The division also contains expert teams of social researchers and operational researchers, who you will be able to draw on to provide support and input to your work.

You will jointly lead the OCE alongside another G6 economist, but with specific areas of responsibility. These currently include leading the analytical input to Defra’s economic strategy and contribution to the Government’s growth mission, supporting decisions related to organisational change and better understanding Defra’s sub-national expenditure and impact. 

Encouraging diverse applicants

We recognise the challenges that people with (multiple) protected characteristics may experience on the job market and in their career progression. We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible, and we hope to attract applications from underrepresented groups.

As the Head of the Office of the Chief Economist, you will be responsible for strategic and cross-cutting analysis across Defra’s portfolio. You will lead a friendly and collaborative team of 7 economists, currently with 4 Grade 7 direct reports. You will also play an active role in the directorate’s senior leadership team, working alongside other G6s to support the Lead Analysts and the Chief Economist.

A major part of the role is to lead the analytical input to Defra’s economic strategy, ensuring that the department plays its full role in the Government’s growth mission. Economic growth is this Government's number one mission, and it's at the heart of everything we do in Defra.  We are supporting new infrastructure and development to boost growth, enabling this through modern regulation and planning reform, driving investment in our sectors, and protecting local economies from the threats of floods and animal diseases. Working closely with policy colleagues, as well as analytical colleagues across Defra and other department’s (e.g. DBT, HMT, DSIT) you will build the evidence base to ensure that robust economic analysis underpins the growth work of the department and that the evidence is communicated effectively. 

In addition, you will scope and develop the work programme for the OCE to deliver high quality, impactful analysis to support Defra’s strategies, ministerial priorities and cross cutting areas. This currently includes analysis supporting regulatory and organisational change programmes and cross-cutting evidence gathering on sub-national impacts. You will also support the role of the Director of Analysis in assuring departmental analysis meets robust standards, for example as part of the Spending Review. The role includes representing Defra analytical thinking on cross cutting issues in cross-Whitehall forums and with OGDs. 

We are looking for a strong analytical leader with experience of leading teams and complex analytical work programmes and working with a wide range of stakeholders.

The essential criteria for the role are:

Team Leadership: lead and develop a high-performing, inclusive team ensuring appropriate resource and effective prioritisation across the teams as well as focussing on the development and wellbeing of the team.

Strategic leadership: be an active member of the AID senior management team, ensuring that the division is a positive place to work.

Economic strategy analytical lead: working closely with policy colleagues, set the direction for the economic strategy and ensure the work is underpinned by robust analysis. This will involve working closely with analysts across Defra and across government, for example on delivery of the Industrial Strategy White Paper. It may involve commissioning external research to fill identified evidence gaps, for example on green jobs and skills.

Analytical project scoping and delivery: identify and scope future strategic workstreams, putting in place successful delivery plans, including robust quality assurance, and resource to deliver. Ensure that the workstreams have impact through effective engagement and communication across the department.

Skills and experience

• You must have a first or upper second-class honours degree in economics (or international equivalent), or a postgraduate degree in economics. If it is a joint degree, at least 50% of the course modules must be in economics.
• You must be a member of the Government Economic Service or be willing to become a member.

You will need to demonstrate experience of:

• leading teams to deliver analytical workstreams whilst supporting team members’ development and wellbeing and demonstrating inclusive leadership.
• advising senior officials and Ministers and ensuring teams can communicate complex economic analysis and issues clearly and accessibly.
• building and maintaining a strong network of colleagues to achieve progress on shared goals.
• working with other professions to deliver impactful analysis.
• applying sound economic principles and quality assurance processes to ensure robust modelling and analysis.
• and an ability to identify strategic evidence gaps an develop work programmes to successfully address these.

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

• Leadership
• Working Together
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing

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

• Candidates will be assessed against the GES technical framework. Application of knowledge – level 3
• Candidates will be assessed against the GES technical framework. Analysis of data – level 3