View Vacancy - Regional Crisis Advisor (HUN465)

The British Embassy in Hungary is part of a world-wide network, representing British political, economic and consular interests overseas and is now looking for a energetic and motivated Regional Crisis Advisor.

British diplomatic posts overseas are at the frontline of a UK government response to an overseas crisis affecting British people and interests. This role focuses on ensuring that they have the right, plans and skills to be able to respond to a range of different crisis scenarios. Within your region you will be responsible for understanding the risks that different Embassies / Consulates face and their overall preparedness and providing support and advice to help them improve their ability to respond. You will be expected to champion the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s (FCO) clear crisis management methodology and training products, supported and directed by the FCO Crisis Management department in London and working closely with our regional consular staff. Although this role is based in Budapest you will need to be able to form close working relationships with the other Posts in your region, prioritising those with the greatest need for support and travelling to deliver training and advice. You will benefit from excellent learning and development opportunities, which will allow you to deepen your crisis management skills as well as a supportive network of colleagues both in London and overseas.  Key roles are:            

• Crisis Preparedness: develop a coherent approach to crisis management across the EuroAsia region by supporting crisis preparedness for 40 Embassies and Consulates across Europe, Russia and the Caucuses providing high quality guidance, and training so that posts are well prepared to effectively respond to a crisis, in line with FCO London Crisis Management Department (CMD) policy and guidance;
• Crisis Response: to provide support and advice to Posts experiencing or approaching a crisis to ensure the most effective response;
• Crisis Improvement: to maintain a good understanding of the crisis risks within your region, providing input to and quality assurance of post crisis management plans, highlighting key risks to the Consular Regional Director (CRD) and CMD and applying lessons from crises and exercises. Maintain good relationships with both internal and external crisis management stakeholders in order to enhance regional risk assessment and horizon scanning.

In more detail, main responsibilities will include:

• Network and Post Support: to prioritise crisis preparedness work in your region based on an understanding of risk and horizon scanning. To act as expert adviser to Post Crisis Management Committees making recommendations to ensure policy and guidance is followed by Posts. To encourage and help embed a ‘whole of mission approach’ to planning and crisis preparedness.   Act as a champion for our IT system Crisis Hub and ensure relevant staff across the region keep their skills and access up-to-date to reflect latest developments of Crisis Hub. Working with CMD and the CRD provide advice and support to Posts in crisis;
• Quality Assurance: to advise Posts on development of their crisis management plans (CMPs), and crisis preparedness working to achieve a consistent quality across the region, merging local knowledge with central crisis management guidance. Work with CMD’s Planning Team to indentify risks, capability and capacity gaps and to help Posts take steps to improve their preparedness;
• Training & Exercising: deliver effective crisis workshops, tabletop and design semi-live exercises in your region liaising closely with the CMD Training & Exercising Team and using the latest training approaches and materials. Identify any potential learning / skills gaps in crisis management techniques and work with CMD to address them. Help CMD to coordinate and prioritise regional exercises, and assist in the delivery of overseas training events. Support crisis managers to encourage colleagues to complete the crisis content of the Diplomatic Academy’s foundation level. Champion the various learning methods to help promote and develop crisis management learning in region;
• Stakeholder Engagement & Lessons Learned: to actively support Posts’ engagement with host governments and major UK crisis management stakeholders to ensure good understanding of host country and regional crisis structures and maintain up-to-date liaison contacts. To participate in, and facilitate where appropriate (e.g. for locally managed crises), the crisis lessons learned process. To identify, record and share best practice regionally. Working with CMD to ensure lessons learned are taken forward and incorporated back into CMPs across the region.

• Excellent English language skills (written and oral);
• Experience of working in an international or governmental organisation;
• Excellent inter-personal, communication and team working skills;
• Excellent organizational skills and a proactive approach;
• Resilience, with ability to work unsupervised and innovate;
• Self starter with strong time management skills - able to work to deadlines and targets and manage a sometimes heavy workload;
• Excellent IT skills (Outlook, PowerPoint, Word and Excel).