Environmental Health Officer

Job Category : Environmental
Location : Town Hall, North Yorkshire Council
Hours Per Week : 37.00
Start Date : Immediate Start
Start Time : 09:00
End Time : 17:30
Salary: £40.00
Requirement, a fully qualified Environmental Health Officer with experience of working in a fast paced Environmental Protection Team. Must demonstrate: Experience in an enforcement role relevant to the functions of the Residential team (Environmental Protection); Good oral and written communication skills; Ability to manage time effectively; Ability to work with team members to achieve results; Ability to identify problems, analyse information and use judgement to reach informed decisions; Ability to understand and meet the needs of customers; Experience of carrying out legal investigations, compiling legal cases and giving evidence in court; Experience of implementing enforcement policies and procedures; Experience of recording, collating and reporting information for various audiences; Experience in use of specialist Environmental Health software;
The core work and objectives of Regulatory Services includes:
• Protecting the health, safety and wellbeing of the County’s residents, businesses, and visitors.
• Providing high-quality support and advice to County’s residents and businesses.
• Ensure that food manufactured, prepared, exported, imported, and offered for sale in the County complies with safety and hygiene requirements by working with the food industry and where necessary taking enforcement action. This is achieved by carrying out a range of interventions including advice and education, inspection/audit of food businesses using a risk-based system, investigating complaints about food and the hygiene of food premises, sampling of food for local, regional or national initiatives/surveillance, and in response to complaints and to support investigations, issuing export certificates and other attestations to enable business to export their products outside the UK and where appropriate carrying out controls on imported foodstuffs; responding to reports from the Food Standards Agency and other local authorities regarding foodstuffs that fail to comply with food law, investigating food fraud and other criminality linked to food.
• Protecting the health of communities by investigating cases/suspected cases and outbreaks of food poisoning and food borne disease and other diseases such as Legionellosis.
• Protecting the health, safety, and welfare of workers and those affected by the activities of business by enforcing workplace health and safety legislation and investigating workplace accidents and fatalities in relevant businesses.
• Regulating prescribed industrial processes through a permitting regime to ensure that emissions to air, water and land are minimised and in accordance with required standards.
• Protecting the health of private water supply users by ensuring that the water meets the required safety parameters and supplies are suitably maintained.
• Monitoring the air quality in the County including working with other departments such as Licensing and Highways to gain improvements and where exceedances in pollution standards are identified declaring and then managing Air Quality Management Areas.
• Ensuring that land in the County does not present an unacceptable risk to human health, controlled waters, ecological systems, crops, livestock, buildings, and property by identifying and dealing with
the Contaminated Land in accordance with the regime a set out in Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
• Responding to Planning and Licensing consultations to minimise the impact upon the environment and residential amenity and ensuring the fulfilment of Licensing Objectives under the Licensing Act 2003 for prevention of public nuisance.
Professional Qualifications
• Degree in Environmental Health (BSc or MSc)
• A qualified Environmental Health Officer registered by the Environmental Health Registration Board (EHRB).
Occupational Skills
• Investigative, analytical, and interpretative skills to comprehend and enforce the requirements of legislation and guidance.
• Ability to use expert regulatory services opinion to provide practical and innovative solutions to complex legal or service delivery issues.
• Communication skills able to communicate effectively in a variety of formats at all levels.
• Ability to seek, evaluate and organise information to aid decision making.
• Ability to build, maintain and influence working relationships with key stakeholders and partners.
• Ability to make fast paced decisions based upon evidence presented within an ever-changing environment.
• Ability to work under pressure and a flexible approach to changing work patterns.
• Ability to operate complex and sophisticated instrumentation, for example, noise monitoring and recording equipment, air quality monitoring equipment and possess the necessary IT skills to capture, store, analyse and display data.
• Understanding of the political context and the ability to operate sensitively and efficiently within a political environment.
Other Requirements
• Ability to travel across the county and other locations.
• Perform duties as required, outside normal working hours, to meet the demands of the service including participation in the out of hours’ emergency response service and civil emergencies.
• Ability to work to a high standard of customer care.
• Manage a complex workload.
• Driving Licence.