Senior Environmental Protection Officer

Salary: Grade 8, £36,841 - £42,811 per annum
Hours: Full time, 37 hours per week
Place of Work: Breckland Council, Dereham (remote-enabled
Basis: Permanent

Would you like a job where what you do:

• Helps ensure our communities are protected?
• Makes a real difference to our local environment & places we live & work in?
• Ensures great team working with a supervisory capacity?
• Inspires our communities
• Provides variety and great job satisfaction

If so, come and join us in the role of Senior Environment Protection Officer!  

We are seeking an enthusiastic and experienced Senior Environmental Protection Officer who will make a real difference to our place, communities and local environment. The role will be rewarding, varied but challenging! We have a very good track record, and you would be joining a high performing team.

You will:

• Act as a Lead Officer for issues relating to the relevant area of expertise e.g. Statutory Nuisance, Permitting of Prescribed processes, contaminated land, public health, private water supplies, air quality and other environmental protection statutory functions.
• Work with the Team Leader to plan and prioritise the team's workload, to ensure high quality outcomes and performance.
• Undertake a range of inspections/visits, taking the lead on high priority and complex cases ensuring compliance with all relevant regulatory requirements, projects and initiatives, including income generation activities ( e.g. water sampling, risk assessments and searches).
• Be responsible for the performance management/supervision of staff, including motivating, conducting Performance Development Reviews (PDR'S).
• Sharing expertise, knowledge and support Environmental Protection Officers, Environmental Protection Assistants, sampling Officer, graduate and apprentices.
• Where necessary, take formal enforcement action on a wide range of Environmental Health & Public Health legislation, including the service of abatement, legal, Community protection warning and community protection notices and Fixed penalty Notices. This will include preparation of evidence and the instigation of prosecutions and formal enforcement proceedings.
• Ensure that the local and wider Environment is not contaminated/polluted and is a nice and pleasant place to live, visit and work with no significant impacts on health or the local economy and community.
• Respond to service requests, but also undertake proactive action to prevent environmental crime, pollution & nuisance. Dealing with allocated work in relation to Contaminated land, private water supplies, water sampling, air quality/air pollution, prevention of damage by pests, permitting of prescribed processes and general public health and anti-social behaviour legislation (e.g. noise, community warning letters and action notices). Implement appropriate interventions in accordance with Council policies to rectify non-compliance.
• Develop and maintain a good understanding of all functions undertaken by the service and adopt a 'one team approach'.
• Build and maintain relationships with key partners, including other council services, public, private and voluntary sector organisation to maximise effectiveness and efficiency of service delivery.
• Work unsociable hours as necessary to maximise the effectiveness of service delivery.

About you:

Your personality & attitude are just as important to us as your professional experience. You are a strong team player. People like dealing with you, because you make things easy for them to understand,  you focus on and listen to what they say. You are empathetic and will do whatever you can to help, which allows you to quickly establish rapport and build strong relationships.

You exude confidence, remain calm and collected during difficult situations or confrontation, and can effectively de-escalate the situation. 

You will deal sensitively and confidentially with situations that may be challenging but require clear and logical decisions to be made. You keep going no matter how difficult things get, and use setbacks as a springboard for greater success.

You are passionate about providing the best possible service for our residents and take pride in successful outcomes.

Collaborative; Ambitious; Results-driven; Empowering; Supportive

OK, I'm interested...but is it really the job for me?

As our Senior Environmental Protection Officer you will have:

• Experience of working with members of the public, including in challenging and confrontational situations, ideally within a political environment.
• Strong technical knowledge and experience of working in a similar role.
• Experience of meeting tight deadlines and targets in a fast-paced work environment
• Good organisational and highly effective communication skills
• Highly developed team working skills, ideally with previous experience of people management/supervision .

What's it like to work for us?

We are passionate about our people and pride ourselves on being a great place to work, we genuinely care and know that a happy workforce is a productive and motivated one! If you're still not sure, here are some stats from our 2024 staff survey to convince you..

• 94% said they feel trusted and empowered
• 90% of staff recommend Breckland as a great place to work
• 89% said they have had opportunities to learn and grow in the last 12 months
• 94% think Breckland provide positive action on health and wellbeing
• 91% said they felt supported by their manager

If you STILL need convincing, here's what some of our staff say...

• "Breckland is a fantastic employer, lots of opportunities and support"
• "Having only just started, it is a great place to work, everyone says hello, is smiley and chatty. I like the groups that are on, like carers shed and neurodiversity"
• "We are encouraged to take regular breaks and there are mental health first aiders and a wide range of good promotional aspects of healthy living and wellbeing."
• "In times of need the council offers excellent support."
• "BDC really does seem to care about the wellbeing and happiness of their staff."

We offer excellent conditions of service, including:

• A local government pension scheme (14 per cent employer contribution).
• Attractive holiday package (25 days increasing after three years' continuous Local Authority service by one day per year up to the maximum of 28 days, plus bank holidays)
• Free car parking.
• Remote-enabled working arrangements.
• A newly refurbished office.

Closing date - 10am, Thursday 26th September 2024

We look forward to hearing from you!