Emergency Planning Lead

Summary:

At South East Water, keeping the water flowing for millions of customers requires world-class foresight, rapid tactical execution, and unwavering resilience. We are seeking an authoritative, visionary Emergency Planning Lead to take total organizational accountability for our Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Recovery (EPRR) framework.

This isn't just about managing plans-it is about leading culture, shaping strategy, and ensuring our operations withstand any challenge.

The Opportunity:

As our subject matter expert, you will step to the forefront of our operational strategy. You will set the direction, standards, and priorities that elevate our resilience, ensuring South East Water remains robust, agile, and fully compliant with all regulatory and legislative requirements.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership:
Head a dedicated team of Emergency Planners,
    establishing clear priorities and long-term EPRR strategies.

    Internal

Collaboration:

Partner directly with the Ops Improvement Team,
    Alternative Water Team, and SEMD Lead to integrate localized tactical plans
    seamlessly into our master response strategy.

    External Influence:
Serve as the face of South East Water across regional
    Local Resilience Forums (LRFs). Actively contribute to area-specific water
    disruption plans and drive the adoption of industry best practices.

    Regulatory Governance:
Ensure complete, uncompromised compliance
    across all statutory emergency obligations.

    Brand Restoration:
Play a critical frontline role in enhancing operational
    resilience, minimizing impact during incidents, and actively rebuilding trust
    with external partners and local communities.

What We Are Looking For :

    Proven EPRR Expertise: A seasoned emergency planning expert with a strong
    track record in critical national infrastructure (CNI) or utility sectors.

    Decisive Command: A confident leader capable of providing clear, concise,
    and calm direction during high-pressure incidents.

    Cross-Functional Negotiator:
Ability to translate complex tactical data from
    specialized teams into actionable strategic frameworks.

    Key Stakeholder Influencer:
Extensive experience building robust working
    relationships with external multi-agency partners, emergency services, and
    LRFs.

Main responsibilities:

Team Leadership & Delivery:
Directly manage the Emergency Planning Team, overseeing performance and professional growth.
Build capability within the Emergency Planning Team, using previous experience to coach and mentor as required.
Provide wider business coaching, specifically on incident management and emergency response.

Internal and external stakeholder management:
This role will be responsible for building internal relationships with key stakeholders to build a collaborative response to incidents and emergency planning.
This role will be responsible for working with Local Resilience Forums to ensure industry best practice is adopted at South East Water. The role will actively participate in LRF working groups, contributing towards area specific water disruption plans.

Undertake incident reviews, identify areas for improvement and implement actions:
This role will support our internal incident review process, working closely with the Operational Resilience and Security Manager to identify opportunities for improvement.
This role will be responsible for ensuring improvement opportunities are recorded, implemented and tested.

Develop, implement and own South East Water's emergency planning framework:
This role will be responsible for aligning operational, tactical and strategic plans within our Incident and Emergency Plan.
This role will be responsible for reviewing our existing emergency planning policies and where necessary updating.
This role will be responsible for creating new emergency planning policies, and where possible aligning with the multi agency response approach.

Internal incident management training:
This role will be responsible for an ongoing programme of incident management training.
This role will be responsible for developing training material for all roles on our incident management rota.
This role will be responsible for ensuring the principles of Gold, Silver and Bronze Command are understood and implemented.

Business Continuity planning:
This role will be responsible for wider business continuity, by assessing potential threats and conducting impact assessments to inform business continuity…