Director of Science at JNCC

The Joint Nature Conservation Committee established the JNCC Support Company to undertake work relevant to the discharge of the Committee’s statutory functions, as set out in the Committee’s Corporate Plan. The Company employs staff to undertake work directly and to commission work under contract; it also manages the Committee’s budget. The Company is accountable to its Board of Directors which, under its current Articles, comprises each member of the Joint Committee together with up to three Executive Directors. 

In practice, the day-to-day running of the Company is the responsibility of the Executive Management Board which comprises the Managing Director, the Director of Policy and Resources, the Director of Science and the Director of Marine.

While the Managing Director is ultimately responsible to the Company Board for the running of JNCC's business, in practice it is the Executive Management Board which takes the majority of the corporate decisions.  Each of the Directors (apart from the Managing Director) also has direct management responsibility for about one third of the Company's staff and financial resources, and for the specific programmes of work allocated to their individual Directorate.  The individual Directors review progress and expenditure on the work programmes of their Directorate (and also the future direction of those programmes) with relevant senior staff at quarterly governance meetings, and, with individual managers, more frequently as circumstances may require.

Post  background

All of JNCC's work needs to be underpinned by the best available science.  The Director of Science has oversight of science within JNCC, but also has particular responsibility for JNCC's work on conservation standards, surveillance and monitoring, access to information, biodiversity reporting, and co-ordination of research.  JNCC currently employs some 33 staff to carry out these work programmes and allocates a budget (in addition to staff and staff-related costs) of ca £1.6 million to support this work.  As a consequence of the forthcoming retirement of the present postholder, JNCC requires a Director of Science to assume the oversight and direction of this work, and also to be a member of the Executive Management Board having responsibility for the effective and satisfactory management of the Company jointly with the other Directors.  The post will report to the Managing Director.