Introduction

A new Goverment Executive Agency will be formally launched on the 1st April 2009. It will be designed to reflect the UK’s future changing demand requirements for environmental research.

Launching in April, the agency has operated in shadow form from 1 April 2008 under a newly appointed Chief Executive, Adrian Belton. It will be formed by the merger of Central Science Laboratory (CSL) with Defra Plant Health Division (PHD) / Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate (PHSI) and the Plant Variety Rights Office and Seeds Division (PVS). Based primarily at the current CSL site at Sand Hutton near York, the Agency will also operate out of premises in Cambridge and rural Gloucestershire as well as boasting over a hundred outstationed staff either working from home or at Government sites throughout England and Wales.

This organisation will benefit customers of the respective constituent parts and taxpayers through improved effectiveness and compliance with the Hampton principles of better regulation and overall value for money.

The role of the new agency is to provide robust evidence, rigorous analysis and professional advice to Government, international organisations and the private sector, in order to support and develop a sustainable food chain, a healthy natural environment, and to protect the global community from biological and chemical risks.

The Agency will fulfil its role by delivering excellence and innovation in its core fields of policy development, regulation, scientific assurance, and capacity development. This in turn requires investment in continuous improvement in the quality and cost effectiveness of its work and the demonstration of its effectiveness through external audit to the highest international standards.

The Agency’s ambitions are to deliver ever-greater benefits to its stakeholders and -to respond to the diverse global challenges they face - such as climate change and food security. At the same time, it will seek to protect their interests through emergency response and will work with them to exploit the potential of new opportunities.

The newly-formed Agency requires a senior management team capable of assuming corporate leadership roles for the organisation. The post of Director of Finance & Corporate Services will form a key part of the senior management team with shared responsibility for corporate activity as well as particular responsibility for the management of the Agency’s financial and support services.