Civil Contingencies Manager

Job Description

Organisation: London Borough of Waltham Forest

Salary: PO8 - £59,511 - £62,766

Contract Type: Full-time/Permanent

Working hours per week: 36

Application Deadline: 19/08/2026

Proposed Interview Date(s): Week commencing 24/08/2026

Reference: 2254

About Us

Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, the London Borough of Waltham Forest is a fantastic and exciting place to work. We are a highly ambitious borough. Driven by culture and the innate creativity of our residents, we have developed new and innovative ways to build our communities. Our Council is relentlessly resident-focused, insight-led, digitally driven and commercially minded; a Council focused on meeting the needs of our existing and future residents. London Borough of Waltham Forest is one of the Mayor of London's Good Work Standard employers. This accreditation is a proof of our commitment to creating a healthy, fair and inclusive workplace. This includes fair pay and conditions, workplace well-being, skills and progression and diversity and recruitment.

The Council's preference is for online application. However, if you have a disability and are unable to complete an online application, please email so we can arrange an alternative application method.

About the role

You will lead, plan, develop and deliver an expert professional service within Waltham Forest.

To manage the Civil Contingency service, overseeing plans, risk assessments, emergency preparedness, threat mitigations and the testing of contingency arrangements.

Being the corporate lead in providing strategic oversight of the CCTV network and infrastructure, ensuring that relevant legislation, guidance and best practice is compliant and is correctly applied across the council, and to advise staff on the appropriate use of this legislation.

We are a Home Office-licensed sponsor; however, for this specific role we are not able to provide Skilled Worker visa sponsorship. To be considered, you must already hold a form of UK work authorisation that does not require sponsorship.

Key Responsibilities

• To manage the Civil Contingency service, providing oversight, guidance and approval of plan reviews, new plans and threat mitigations. To oversee the preparation of risk assessments, and emergency plans, and tests contingency arrangements.
• To support the delivery of the Council's statutory duties as a Category 1 responder under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, working collaboratively to embed operational resilience and business continuity across the Council, including undertaking an administrative role within the statutory Borough Resilience Forum and wider multi-agency arrangements.
• To participate in the Council's 24/7 corporate crisis response arrangements, supporting the deployment and coordination of the Corporate Emergency Response Team, associated resources and equipment.
• To support the Council's capability to activate and operate the Borough Emergency Control Centre, coordinating the Council's emergency response and providing an emergency centre for the community as required.
• To support the Head of Civil Contingencies & CCTV Operations, including contributing to briefings for directors, managers and councillors on organisational resilience, multi-agency crisis response protocols and business continuity.
• To review, implement and approve safety and security measures for events, and to assess and respond to threats and risks to elected members, approving counter-terrorism-related mitigation measures and providing advice on appropriate protective security arrangements.
• To coordinate the Council's response to unplanned incidents and potential emergencies, managing the Crisis Response Team, supporting emergency responders and leading recovery activity.
• To ensure timely on-call notifications and briefings to both the duty Tactical and Strategic Commanders, activate corporate and multi-agency response plans, and maintain effective communication with emergency services and partner responders.
• To provide specialist leadership and direction in complex incidents and emergencies, ensuring effective response and protection of the Council's reputation.
• To maintain up-to-date knowledge of civil contingencies legislation, associated procedures and guidance, and to maintain professional competence for the role.

Qualifications and Requirements

• Knowledge and experience of emergency preparedness, multiagency crisis response protocols, local, regional and national emergency plans, recovery protocols and business continuity.
• Ability to assess competency of crisis response team members against standards, identify training to meet development needs.
• Ability to advise on the preparation and maintenance of divisional business continuity plans, in conjunction with team managers, including arrangements for interim arrangements following service disruption and full recovery of operations.
• Ability to deputise comprehensively for the Head of Civil Contingencies & CCTV Operations and assist in developing the future direction of the service.
• Possess a flexible approach to new or emerging challenges affecting civil protection and resilience and to be able to work to mitigate against potential new threats.
• Experience in the delivery of business continuity and emergency planning functions including experience of incident management.
• Experience of applying principles of risk assessment to business continuity and organisational resilience in planning and response.
• Experience of leading on a wide range of projects and activities including delivery of multiagency exercises and contributing to regional work.
• Ability to participate in the crisis response on call rota in either tactical response or advisor roles and attend the scene of incidents or other locations in the borough within 90 minutes of call out.
• Ability to work outside of normal office hours where required, as part of response to emergencies and attendance at events.

Terms and conditions

The below terms and conditions apply to this role:

• Satisfactory employment references and CIFAS identity checks;
• Satisfactory declaration of interest;
• Satisfactory DBS check;
• Police Vetting
• As a public authority, we must ensure that members of staff in public-facing roles are able to speak fluent English. This means that they must have a command of spoken English, with confidence and accuracy, sufficient for the effective performance of their role. This requirement does not refer to any particular English language qualifications, regional or international accents, dialects, speech impediments or the tone of conversations. It does not require staff to speak only in English.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both, service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives: - Promoting equality of opportunity - Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage - Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels. - Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all. Respecting Diversity is a core Council value.

To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy.

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below or feel free to discuss this during your interview.

For more information on the benefits of working for the Council, please visit

Contact Information

If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact Dan Lawson, Corporate Director Community Safety & Public Protection at

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Recruitment Team via email at

The Council's preference is for online application. However, if you have a disability and are unable to complete an online application, please email so we can arrange an alternative application method.

#J-18808-Ljbffr