Flood Liaison Officer

The Flood Liaison Officer will play an exciting pivotal role in engaging with communities, building community flood resilience, liaising with Risk Management Authorities and other key stakeholders, and raising awareness of the sources of flood risk. This new role is situated in the Strategic Flood Management Team within the wider Flood Risk Management Team.

The Climate Change and Flood Risk Management (CCFRM Team) manages flood risk in Buckinghamshire in its role as the Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA), as well as managing the council’s response to climate change. The Team is comprised of the Flood Management Team, the Sustainable Drainage Team, Project Groundwater, the Capital Flood Programme Team, the Domestic Resource Efficiency Service, and the Climate Response Team, with officers who are enthusiastic and passionate about managing local flood risk and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

The CCFRM Team delivers the statutory duties of the LLFA under the Flood and Water Management Act (2010) and Land Drainage Act (1991); develops and delivers a wide range of flood management and research projects; guides the flood management approach regarding large infrastructure projects; helps households reduce their energy, water consumption and carbon emissions; and manages large tree planting, electricity grid capacity upgrades and the council’s Climate Change and Air Quality Strategy.

The Flood Management Team, which this role is situated within, is responsible for the non-planning statutory role of the LLFA, which includes undertaking investigations into significant flood events, managing land drainage consents and enforcement, and responding to enquiries.

The Team updated the Buckinghamshire Local Flood Risk Management Strategy last year, which includes a number of exciting actions, including building community flood risk resilience. To this end, the Flood Management Team has recently secured funding for two new permanent roles: a Flood Liaison Officer position and a Senior Flood Liaison Officer position. The Senior Flood Liaison Officer role has recently been recruited to, and we are now seeking to fill the Officer position.

Climate change is increasing the likelihood and extent of flooding, with communities in Buckinghamshire experiencing multiple flood events in recent years.

Pursuant to achieving the objectives of the Local Flood Risk Management Strategy, the Senior Flood Liaison Officer and Flood Liaison Officer will work together on initiatives such as:

• increasing stakeholders’ understanding of the sources of flood risk
• delivering flood resilience engagement with local communities
• effectively providing support regarding flood matters
• liaising with partner organisations to collate information, improve communications and help drive progress regarding flood risk mitigation activity

Whilst the two roles will work together, we expect that the Flood Liaison Officer will focus more on day-to-day community engagement, improving data management, responding to non-technical or community-related queries, and supporting lower profile or less challenging communities.

The Senior Flood Liaison Officer role is a more strategic role with leadership and organising responsibilities, and will take a lead on supporting more high-profile or challenging communities.

Andrew Waugh, Strategic Flood Risk Team Leader said “This brand new Flood role will support the team in really making a difference to the communities we want to work with. This is a new area of work for the team and is a great opportunity for a self-starter with a background in flood risk management or similar with a keen interest in communication and empowering communities.”

The main responsibilities and duties of the Flood Liaison Officer are to:

• Deliver initiatives which increase stakeholders’ understanding of the sources of flood risk.
• Deliver/or contribute to projects and programmes that build community flood resilience in Buckinghamshire. This may include:
• Engaging with at-risk communities to support existing Flood Action Groups or the establishment of new Flood Action Groups
• Helping communities design and…