Environmental Health Officer - Waverley Court in Edinburgh

Salary: £46,023 - £54,476

Hours: 36 per week, 52 weeks. Although we welcome applications for a range of hours (please be clear on application).

The City of Edinburgh Council is a predominantly urban Local Authority with a population of approximately 523,000. Edinburgh is a popular tourist destination with visitors coming to see the city's museums, markets and monuments as well as some of the most famous festivals in the world. Providing for the population and visitors requires services and facilities that meet their needs including entertainment, restaurants, bars and cafes. Edinburgh is an important financial centre and is home to a number of universities and colleges and some manufacturing.

This dynamic operating environment and the impacts of both technological and legislative change require a strong Environmental Health Service performing to the highest standards of competency, service delivery and professionalism. There can be few places more interesting than Edinburgh to work in Environmental Health.

Our Environmental Health Service comprises four teams: one covering Environmental Protection and three Food, Health and Safety teams. We are looking for enthusiastic and energetic EHOs to enhance Food, Health and Safety teams. We can offer a dynamic and interesting environment and want to encourage applications from qualified Environmental Health Officers (newly or experienced) looking for a new challenge. These posts will be based in Waverly Court although work is throughout the city with a degree of flexibility and some home working (subject to operational requirements). Some work out of normal office hours will be required.

We are committed to creating a workplace culture where all our people feel valued, included and able to be their best at work, and we recognise the benefits that a diverse workforce with different values, beliefs, experience, and backgrounds brings to us as an organisation. As part of our goal to improve our organisational culture and create a great place to work together for the people of Edinburgh, we want to make sure that we're bringing the best people into our roles, not just in their skills and experience but also in their approach to work.

To help achieve this, we're changing the way we interview and assess candidates by moving from a competency-based interview approach to a behavioural and technical (skills for the job) based approach. This new way of interviewing will allow us to assess how you think and how you would bring Our Behaviours of Respect, Integrity and Flexibility into your ways of working.

Responsibilities:

• Experience relating to enforcement or ensuring compliance with legislation.
• Experience working as a qualified Environmental Health Officer although applicants due to sit exams in the upcoming REHIS Professional Exam diet will be welcomed (Desirable).
• Demonstrate a broad understanding of current issues in local government.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to negotiate where necessary.
• Ability to work in a team, demonstrating leadership skills where necessary and pass on knowledge and experience to other officers.
• Demonstrated effective communications in a range of circumstances and audiences.
• Detailed knowledge of relevant legislation, guidance, codes of practice and ability to develop and maintain existing internal procedures and policies.
• Demonstrated ability and experience in providing leadership, supervision, advice and support to staff groups, colleagues, and customers.
• Excellent interpretive and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent investigatory skills, the ability to investigate creatively and identify necessary evidence.
• Well-developed organisational skills and ability to use a range of computer packages and databases to a competent standard.

Qualifications and training:

• Educated to degree level or equivalent in a relevant professional discipline.
• Environmental Health Officers must hold an appropriate professional qualification, as defined under UK and EU legislation.
• Membership of a relevant professional body is desirable e.g. Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland, Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, or equivalent.
• Must have specialist knowledge in a range of environmental health disciplines including a high degree of legal understanding and interpretation.
• Possession of additional specific qualifications to support and enforce these disciplines is desirable (Desirable).

Job specific requirement:

• Able to meet targets and performance indicators.
• Undertake project work, including planning, delivery and managing timescales.
• Provide advice to business, the public, partner agencies and public bodies.
• Have a driving licence.