Lead Enforcement Officer

Do you care about the safety of products and want to protect people and places? Can we use your skills, knowledge and experience to enable UK business to thrive? If the answer is yes, then we would like to hear from you!

We are the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS), part of the Department for Business & Trade (Previously the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy). We are here for the purpose of making regulation work to deliver real world impact. Regulation is a powerful Government tool to address market failures, influence behaviour and promote positive action. Crafted and delivered well, regulation can be an enabler of growth, innovation and efficiency.

Since early 2018 we have been building a positive and creative team that enjoys a position of influence and respect within an organisation that continues to grow, most recently with the addition of construction products regulation planned.

Our primary purpose is to protect people and places from product-related harm, ensuring consumers and businesses can buy and sell products with confidence.

Further information can be found on our website here

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles. We embrace diversity and promote equality of opportunity. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. There is a guaranteed interview scheme (DCS) for people with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

We are Inclusive

We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible and recognise how important inclusivity is to achieve the best outcomes. We hope to attract applications from all underrepresented groups.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation if required to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform crucial job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

The Role and Our Team

The Online and Supply Chain Enforcement Team regulates the full supply chain, from ports and borders through to online marketplaces, fulfilment houses and third-party sellers. We are responsible for ensuring that shopping online will be as safe as shopping on the high street.

We have Lead Enforcement roles available in all three of our Enforcement Teams. Please state in your application which role, or roles, you wish to be considered for. Please be aware, all roles are potentially deployable to other teams dependent on organisational and risk priorities.

Ports and Borders Team:

No two days are the same, working in the Ports & Borders Team. We are committed to preventing unsafe and non-compliant products entering the UK supply chain. Our team delivers a programme of activity in which we look for innovative ways of finding the right intervention points to stop bad actors within the supply chain. This can include deployments a ports, proactively monitoring fulfilment centres and inland activity, and targeting resources to deal with prolific offenders. We work with a range of regulators including Local Authorities, Border Force, and HMRC. Our latest activity is preventing unsafe and non-compliant ebike’s, escooter’s, and conversion kits entering the UK supply chain.

As an SEO Lead Enforcement Officer, you will Lead on Ports and Inland deployments, conducting a range of onsite activities throughout the UK, ensuring Officers follow best practice. You will use initiative and be proactive in establishing a programme of regulatory activity, and lead on a range of high profile or challenging workstreams, compiling accurate project reports, operational plans, and case files. You will be at the forefront of building relationships internally and externally and will play a key role in developing, and mentoring Enforcement Officers.

Online Enforcement:

Online Enforcement is a fast-paced team; we select and test purchase high risk products which are being sold online. We get non-compliant products removed from sale, and monitor how well Online Marketplaces are fulfilling their obligations, enabling OPSS to hold them to account. We also explore new approaches to regulation and enforcement in the Online space enforcing the removal of unsafe products.

As an SEO on the Online Enforcement team you will have a portfolio of cases to manage. Working at pace you will ensure quick action is taken to address the issue, help build up our data and intelligence on how the online economy works, and lead follow up work to ensure businesses remain compliant following intervention. This is a developing area, and you may be asked to lead or contribute to the development of new ways of carrying out regulation online.

Incidents and Investigations:

Incidents and Investigations Team takes the enforcement lead on high profile investigations in the Product Safety space. We also deal with nationally declared product safety Incidents. We take immediate corrective action to protect people and places, and carrying out detailed investigation to determine the appropriate enforcement action and/or sanctions.

Key Responsibilities

• Undertake both proactive and reactive enforcement work to ensure products placed on the UK market are compliant.
• Take the lead on your own enforcement investigations, provide support to multi-officer investigations and supervise your team’s casework.
• Develop and build relationships with relevant professional and trade bodies in the regulated area.
• Provide guidance and support to businesses and business sectors to enable greater compliance within the industry.
• Develop specialist understanding and knowledge of the legislation you enforce, and the industries and sectors you regulate.
• Undertake regulatory activities in accordance with the Regulators’ Code and OPSS’ Enforcement Policy.
• Actively build and maintain relationships across teams within Enforcement and across the office to identify opportunities to add value to your work, ensuring that our approach to regulation is consistent.