About Us:

Celebrating and preserving the unique cultural and environmental character of the borough is a major focus of this department, which includes Planning and Borough Development, Transport and Highways, Libraries, Environmental Health, Community Safety and Cleaner, Greener and Cultural Services.

Kensington and Chelsea is one of London’s most vibrant and densely populated boroughs, with a multitude of beautiful buildings, museums and parks.  The planning team ensure any new building projects are undertaken with consideration to our residents, as well as our skyline.

If you are passionate about the environment, and the support services required to keep it safe, clean and green, take a look at our vacancies and join our dedicated team.

The Role:

This is an exciting opportunity to take a leading role in enhancing the emergency planning and business continuity arrangements for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.  

You will be leading a team focused on developing to deal with emergency incidents and ensuring effective and responsive business continuity arrangements are in place across the Council.

As well as managing the Resilience Service, its staff and budget,  you will be instrumental in leading a whole-organisation approach to major emergency and business continuity planning.  Kensington and Chelsea is one of London's most vibrant boroughs - and there's never been a more exciting time to join us. We're on a journey of transformation, changing our culture, better engaging with all our residents and firmly placing the needs of our communities first. The recently formed Communities Department is central to the Council’s value of “Putting Communities First”. You will join a dynamic and developing department and play a leadership role in its future and that of the Council.      

Please refer to the Job Description for more information

About You:

You will be graduate level educated, or equivalent, with extensive experience of continuing professional development in emergency planning and resilience, including business continuity planning and management, at a senior level within large organisations. You will have collaborative and professional leadership skills and a record of high performance and innovation. You will need a systematic approach, and the confidence to drive and sustain improvement in our emergency and business continuity arrangements across the organisation, gaining senior buy-in. An expert level understanding of the policy and legislation which informs this area, you will hold the communication skills both to translate that into robust and appropriate 24/7 response arrangements, and to ensure they are understood and followed by staff.

Role Requirements:

1. To be responsible for the maintenance and development of the Council’s arrangements by which it remains compliant with the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and accompanying Regulations, namely:

• To assess the risk of emergencies occurring and using this to inform contingency planning
• To put in place emergency plans
• To put in place business continuity management arrangements
• To put in place arrangements to make information available to the public about civil protection matters and maintain arrangements to warn, inform and advise the public in the event of an emergency
• To share information with other local responders to enhance coordination
• To cooperate with other local responders to enhance coordination and efficiency
• To provide advice and assistance to business and voluntary organisations about business continuity management

2. To manage the corporate Contingency Planning Team, its staff, budget and work plan.

3. To promote the shared responsibilities for contingency planning and emergency response management functions across all Council departments and services, and beyond, to the wider community and strategic partners. 

We work in partnership with Hampshire County Council (HCC) who deliver many transactional services on our behalf. Although most communications will be from HCC, all selection and appointment decisions will be made by RBKC. Certain services are shared across more than one Council area to nearby neighbouring Authorities. This enhances delivery and reduces costs. Your recruitment information will advise if your remit extends beyond RBKC.

We will primarily contact candidates by e-mail throughout the recruitment process, please monitor your email junk / spam folder as our system generated emails may be allocated to these folders by your email settings.

We engage our staff with a variety of learning types including face-to-face and virtual learning because we want to ensure our staff understand our values and behaviours, grow their skills and develop their careers.

Additional information

RBKC is currently inclusively reviewing its pay, reward and benefits framework.

This post is covered by the Fluency Duty, as outlined in the Code of Practice on the English language requirements for public sector workers.

We are committed to promoting equality and respecting diversity and welcome applications from all sections of the community.

We are a Disability Confident Employer – committed to ensuring that our recruitment and selection process is inclusive and accessible.