Principal Environmental Health Officer

This is a part time, permanent position. If you would like an informal discussion about the position, call David Sayers, Food, Health & Safety Manager, on 01482 414 949. Are you an experienced Environmental Health Practitioner ready to take the next step in your career? We are seeking a highly motivated and suitably qualified Environmental Health Officer or Practitioner to join our Food Safety Team as a Principal Environmental Health Officer. This is an excellent opportunity to take on a leadership role within a supportive and professional service, protecting public health, supporting responsible businesses and helping to develop the next generation of Environmental Health and Food Safety professionals.

About the role: As a Principal Environmental Health Officer, you will provide day-to-day leadership and professional support to a small team of Food Safety Officers. You will be their principal point of contact, providing guidance, oversight and support while helping them to manage their workloads and deliver consistently high standards of regulatory work. Alongside your leadership responsibilities, you will undertake a varied range of enforcement, advisory and investigative work across the full spectrum of food safety functions.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Managing, supporting and providing professional guidance to Food Safety Officers
• Conducting food hygiene and food safety inspections and investigations
• Investigating food-related complaints, incidents and outbreaks of infectious disease
• Advising businesses on legal requirements and supporting them to achieve and maintain compliance
• Supporting food export certification and related regulatory functions
• Planning and delivering food sampling programmes
• Gathering, assessing and presenting evidence
• Preparing prosecution and other formal enforcement case files
• Representing the authority in court and other legal proceedings
• Working collaboratively with local, regional and national partner agencies

You will also play an important role in supporting the professional development of colleagues. This will include coaching and mentoring apprentices, trainee officers and less experienced staff, helping them to develop their technical knowledge, professional competence and enforcement skills.

The successful candidate will hold:

• An MSc, BSc (Hons), Degree or Diploma in Environmental Health
• A valid Certificate of Registration with the Environmental Health Officers Registration Board
• A full UK driving licence and access to transport suitable for business use

You will have:

• Significant experience of working within a food safety regulatory environment
• Experience of investigating and enforcing legislation across a broad range of food safety matters
• Experience of preparing prosecution or formal enforcement files and presenting evidence
• Experience of providing clear and practical advice to businesses and members of the public
• Strong partnership-working skills and experience of working with local, regional or national agencies
• Experience of supervising, coaching, mentoring or supporting apprentices, trainees or less experienced officers

We are looking for someone who:

• Demonstrates sound professional judgement, integrity and accountability
• Has excellent investigative, analytical and problem-solving skills
• Communicates confidently and professionally with businesses, members of the public, legal professionals and partner agencies
• Is organised, self-motivated and able to manage competing priorities
• Can provide effective leadership and support to colleagues
• Is committed to developing others and promoting high professional standards
• Takes a fair, proportionate and evidence-based approach to regulation and enforcement

ROLE AND PURPOSE: To ensure that the statutory duties for which the postholder is responsible are carried out effectively so that the Council complies with its legal obligations. These duties primarily involve enforcement of food safety legislation in accordance with the Food Law Code of Practice (England) and the control of infectious disease under direction from the "Proper Officer" (UK Health Security Agency).

To act as a member of the Food and Health and Safety management team and contribute to the delivery of the Service Area Business Plan; with specific responsibility for the actions of staff within the Food Safety Team. This requires implementing corporate policies and procedures, being conversant with national policies and initiatives, developing team work plans and operational procedures, as well as managing staff performance.

To develop an annual work plan with respect to food safety, identify priorities, set targets and monitor performance to ensure that programmes of work are delivered for the relevant lead bodies including the Food Standards Agency. Ensure that suitable planning takes place to ensure adherence to targets on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis in order for the authority to meet its targets, balancing reactive and pro-active workloads to achieve this.

To discharge the responsibilities as Lead Officer for Food Safety - this is a statutory function. Failure to comply with food safety standards can have a national as well as a local impact. It is also a vital part of ensuring Hull’s reputation as a city is not tarnished by poor standards of compliance. This role plays a large part in the relationship management between food businesses and the authority.

To manage the development and training of Environmental Health Officers and other team members on a day-to-day basis to ensure that they gain the necessary experience for them to be able to progress through the FSA competency framework which has been set up by the Section Manager.

PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITIES:

1. Strategy – To assist the Food and Health and Safety Manager by developing and monitoring adherence to an annual work plan and by implementing and monitoring policies and work programmes to enable the performance of the Section to be managed against objectives. To take a lead role in the day-to-day work in areas of specialisation, a role which may also involve the management of Contractors and external specialists as well as external high-level stakeholders.
2. To identify priorities to ensure that statutory services are undertaken in accordance with the relevant legislation and guidance including that issued by the Food Standards Agency and UK Health Security Agency. To act as a point of contact at Hull City Council for the Food Standards Agency and be a ‘Lead Officer’ for Food Hygiene.
3. To be responsible for, and have the discretion to, initiate investigations to detect and rectify serious breaches of a wide range of legislation. To interview witnesses, take statements, collect, prepare and collate evidence correctly, thoroughly, professionally and in accordance with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and departmental procedures, to prepare prosecution reports and to act as a witness in court on behalf of the Council.
4. Customer Focus - To conduct detailed inspections and audits at the highest risk business premises, to determine standards, secure improvements and ensure compliance with legal requirements, so as to safeguard workforce and public health, safety and welfare. Investigate the most complex service requests, officer identified contraventions, to identify breaches of legislation, non-compliance with statutory codes of practice, and risks to public health. To take the lead in responding rapidly to urgent requests from the Food Standards Agency and UK Health Security Agency and statutory notifications from other Government Agencies. To negotiate suitable timescales, for the completion of requests, which may include making demands of central government agencies themselves and challenging the assumptions and decisions they have already made in order to provide a customer focused and balanced service for the residents of Hull. Work closely with the Team Managers within the other parts of the Division and colleagues elsewhere in the authority to deliver a cohesive service, this may involve, where necessary taking a lead role in communication for a number of services. This will involve strong influencing skills and interpersonal skills to achieve the desired outcome.
5. To champion a quality, performance and customer focused culture to ensure that services are delivered effectively and in response to identified need. To produce accurate and timely correspondence, records, files and data, including the use of IT and the production of technical reports, to ensure the delivery of quality assured highly focused customer service. To inculcate the practices and processes throughout the team. To act as a lead in the development of corporate systems in use in order to make them as effective as possible in illustrating the contributions of the team to public health objectives. To carry out audits on information contained within the IT systems to ensure accuracy and relevance and to make sure they reflect the current status of premises and can be scrutinised by the relevant external authorities.
6. To manage public requests for advice and reports of concern to ensure a timely and effective response and to ensure the provision of an evidence trail associated with interventions within the team which will allow a qualitative review of action undertaken. To receive feedback on the quality of the service provided, and to benchmark performance. To act on information to enable the team to meet its targets for customer satisfaction and to strive for continuous improvement.
7. Performance Management - To conduct Personal Growth and Performance Review (PGPR) Interviews and 1-1 meetings for the purpose of setting and achieving targets and identifying development and training needs of professional and technical staff. To ensure set standards are achieved and maintained. To take a lead role in monitoring and evaluating service delivery against individual and team targets, take corrective action to address underperformance, ensure the production of timely and accurate performance reports, maintain quality standards and achieve continuous improvement in service delivery.
8. To mentor, train, guide and support less experienced Senior Environmental Health Officers, Environmental Health Officers, Graduate Environmental Health Officers, Food Safety Officers, Regulatory Support Officers and professional trainees, to contribute to their professional development and the development of the team.
9. To recognise, communicate and mitigate risks to the delivery of performance standards. To achieve personal deadlines and targets to ensure compliance with the Service Delivery plan.
10. Leadership - To lead by example and create a positive culture within the team. To motivate, develop and support staff to achieve their full potential through the application of an effective approach to managing personal performance and development. To identify the need for change whilst carrying out the operational implementation of current requirements, at an individual level and through the supervision of staff. To contribute to the planning associated with communicating action needed in response to changes in legislation (or other desirable behavioural change) and to take a primary lead in ensuring the businesses who must deliver these changes are both familiarised with the changes and can take the necessary practical steps to achieve them. Monitor the team to ensure consistency in implementation of changes.
11. In the most complex and high profile cases, to lead, guide and support Senior Environmental Health Officers, Environmental Health Officers, Graduate Environmental Health Officers and Food Safety Officers in the decision to make applications to the Magistrate’s Court for warrants, their execution, and the seizure, detention and confiscation of dangerous articles and substances to safeguard public health. To act as a professional lead during the assessment of other serious high profile/risk contraventions, providing support to Senior Environmental Health Officers, Environmental Health Officers, Graduate Environmental Health Officers and Food Safety Officers during incidents and as part of Voluntary closure situations.
12. To participate in the Councils Standby and Call Back to Work Scheme if/as required to meet the demands on the service. Separately from this, as a matter of course to be able to work flexibly to allow site visits to occur outside of normal working hours to meet the exigencies of the service.
13. To ensure that the performance of staff and their continued professional development is regularly reviewed and is commensurate with their duties and powers that they are authorised to exercise on behalf of the Council. To assess the competency of staff to determine the level of authorisation provided and identify training and development needs to ensure the statutory requirements of the team can be discharged effectively.
14. Statutory Obligations – to act and be listed as a Food Standards Agency ‘Lead Officer’ for Hull City Council. To interpret new and existing legislation using professional judgement, and to determine the impact on service delivery and to ensure the correct allocation of enforcing authority responsibilities between the Council and the Food Standards Agency for premises within the city.
15. To develop and maintain effective working partnerships with internal departments, central government departments and other law enforcing bodies to ensure that there are good communications and to maximise the potential benefits of collaborative working. To participate in the Hull City Councils Events Safety Advisory Group. To possess a sound working knowledge of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

Benefits of Working of Hull City Council:

• A competitive salary
• An excellent pension through the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
• Initially 23 days annual leave depending on length of service. You will also get eight public holidays per year, and three additional days off, one in May/August and one during the Christmas/New year period
• Career development and learning experiences from a range of training courses and learning methods
• Supportive and forward-thinking culture
• Great career development opportunities

Please ensure that you complete and submit your application by midnight prior to the closing date. Please ensure that your application demonstrates how you meet the essential criteria against the person specification as listed in the job description.