Bristol, London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, York
Job Summary
As a Portfolio Business Partner, you will build strong strategic relationships with major programmes and projects, developing a deep understanding of their delivery needs and how they align with wider departmental priorities. You will advise and support Senior Responsible Officers and delivery teams, ensuring programmes follow appropriate assurance, governance and best‑practice project and programme standards.
In this role, you will help programmes navigate investment approvals and assurance processes, identify and surface delivery challenges, and work collaboratively with stakeholders to mitigate risks. You will champion project delivery principles, connect teams with the broader strategic context, and provide constructive challenge where delivery quality or engagement needs strengthening.
Success in the role requires strong analytical and communication skills, the ability to influence and negotiate with senior stakeholders, and confidence operating in complex environments. You will be adaptable, thrive amid ambiguity, and be motivated by problem solving and continuous improvement, helping programmes achieve their best and contributing to a professional and high‑performing delivery community.
Job Description
The Portfolio Directorate deals with a vast range of issues that profoundly impact people’s lives, coordinating across programmes and projects. Your role will be critically important to achieving our vision of ‘creating a great place for living’. This is a particularly exciting time to join the Defra group. You will have the opportunity to contribute towards and influence the development of new approaches and policies on a wide range of issues affecting millions of people in the UK. You will play an active role in shaping and delivering the Defra group’s priorities, working creatively and collaboratively with others to deliver excellent outcomes. These roles will provide significant opportunities to develop your own skills and future career.
Our Business Partners (BPs) are responsible for the strategic relationships between the Portfolio Directorate and the departments’ priority delivery programmes.
They need to develop an in depth understanding of individual delivery programmes and how they sit with the wider picture of Defra’s priorities and be able to balance individual stakeholder requests against wider corporate needs to support successful delivery.
The BP team counsel, advise and support Senior Responsible Officers (SROs) and their teams ensuring major projects and programmes adhere to assurance activities in line with Defra and National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) guidance and the practice of good programme and project discipline, project controls and best practice standards. They also help advocate the project delivery profession, educate teams and individuals on the benefits of project management principles and help provide delivery context to teams by connecting them with the “bigger picture” at portfolio, Defra Group, or cross Whitehall levels.
To be a successful BP, you’ll need to help programmes and projects be their best, supporting them through investment approvals and assurance appropriate to their level of complexity and surfacing challenges to successful delivery working with a broad range of stakeholders to mitigate them. You will be passionate about building and maintaining strong relationships with stakeholders and colleagues across Defra Group being able to influence and negotiate as required. You will be comfortable working with ambiguity and be able to adapt in response to priorities as these change.
You’re a problem solver by nature with an expert practical knowledge of the delivery profession, with strong intelligence gathering and sharing abilities to plan and regularly report on programmes and projects assigned to you. Continuous learning and improvement that benefits our journey to becoming a professional delivery capability is important, and as a BP you’ll be part of a team that will regularly look to set a high standard in delivery across Defra Group and wider Whitehall, providing constructive challenge where quality is compromised, or delivery engagement is low. If you are looking for an intellectually challenging role, with a remit to shape and influence the Government’s plans to drive environmental improvement and support our food and farming industries, then we would be very interested in hearing from you.
Person specification
We are looking for a highly motivated delivery professional who can combine PPM expertise with outstanding stakeholder management skills to ensure the Portfolio Directorate best supports the Department’s priority delivery programmes.
You will be able to demonstrate the following essential criteria: Recent and significant experience in one or more of the following:
* Project Management or Delivery; Portfolio Management; or Change Management (particularly in a programme or project environment).
* Recent experience of senior level stakeholder engagement in a complex stakeholder environment (ideally delivery) to include:
* Effective relationship building and management.
* Recent experience of strategic influencing and excellent negotiation skills with key decision makers in the stakeholder environment to successfully deliver a programme, project or activity.
* Outstanding analytical and communication skills with the capacity to interpret user delivery needs into actionable and prioritised solutions.
Behaviours
* We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
* Working Together
* Changing and Improving
* Communicating and Influencing
We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:
Working Together
Technical skills
* We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
Project Governance
Alongside your salary of £56,375, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs contributes £16,331 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit.
Job Contact For Applicants
* Name : HR Resourcing Delivery Team
* Email : HRResourcingDelivery@defra.gov.uk
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