CHAIR, MARINE MANAGEMENT ORGANISATION

8 days a month £40,459 The MMO’s headquarter offices are in Newcastleupon Tyne. It has a number of coastal offices and a small presence in London.

Defra would like to recruit a new Chair of the Board for the Marine Management Organisation (MMO). We seek applications from candidates who can provide strong strategic leadership to a large and complex delivery organisation during a time of unprecedented change in UK marine policy. Detailed knowledge of the sector is not essential, but a passion for our marine and coastal environment and economy is desirable.

The MMO

The MMO manages the seas around England, ensuring that they aresustainably managed and that they support a flourishing marine economy.The marine economy iscurrently worth more than£47 billion annually to the UK, and has the potential toincrease significantly.

The MMO is responsible to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and has a wide range of responsibilities, which include:

  • managing and monitoring fishing fleet sizes and quotas for catches;
  • planning and licensing for marine construction, deposits and dredging that may have an environmental, economic or social impact;
  • dealing with marine pollution emergencies, including oil spills;
  • helping to prevent illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing worldwide;and
  • producing marine plans to include all marine activities, including those we don’t directly regulate (we are one of the first countries in the world to plan across all marine activities, for all our territorial waters).

One of the MMO’s key challenges in the next five years will be to transform the ways that we manage our seas as we leave the EU and the Common Fisheries Policy. Managing our seas to support sustainable economic growth and protect our precious marine habitats will be as important as ever, but we will have an unprecedented opportunity to change the ways we do this – embracing digital and data, and becoming simpler and easier to do business with.

The role

Meeting every one to two months, non-executive board members bring objectivity, creativity and perspective to the future management of our seas.

The non-executive Chair of the MMO will lead the Board, set the overall strategic operational direction of the MMO, ensure good governance and, with the Board, hold the Executive to account.

Candidates must be able to demonstrate all of the following essential criteria:

  1. The ability to provide effective strategic leadership of a complex delivery organisation.
  2. The ability to lead and support reform to address the opportunities leaving the EU presents.
  3. The ability to engage successfully with others, building productive and collaborative working relationships with a diverse group of senior stakeholders and partners to deliver a top quality service to customers
  4. The ability and capacity to visibly lead and represent the MMO, clearly communicating its strategic direction and purpose.
  5. An ability to build an effective team culture and create consensus on practical solutions both within the Board and in the way the wider organisation does business.

For further information about this role and to apply, please visit:

Closing date for applications: Noon, Monday 2 October.

We actively encourage applications from individuals from a diverse range of backgrounds. Defra operates a guaranteed interview scheme for disabled people.