About the job

Job summary

UKHSA is a Category 1 responder as defined by the Civil Contingencies Act, 2004 and Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR) is an important element of its activity. This role is pivotal in ensuring that UKHSA delivers and maintains a high-quality service in this area.

The Emergency Preparedness Officer (EPO) provides local guidance for health emergency preparedness and advice working within the UKHSA South West Region EPRR team and reporting to the Emergency Preparedness Manager (EPM). 

The EPO assists in ensuring governance and audit of all UKHSA region emergency plans and will be required to attend Local Resilience Forums, Local Health Resilience Partnerships and associated sub-groups. 

The EPO will also work with the colleagues in the EPRR team in delivering business plan priorities that includes lessons identified process following incidents and exercises and provision of training and exercising to staff within UKHSA and external stakeholders.

Job description

Main duties of the job

The Emergency Preparedness Officer is a development role and will work within the South West EPRR team supporting activities in the assessment, development, production and maintenance of the emergency preparedness and response arrangements as well as governance and audit processes in line with agreed UKHSA standards.  They will also be required to contribute to the Local Resilience Fora, Local Health Resilience Partnerships and specific sub-groups representing UKHSA when and where appropriate.

Other key duties will include but not limited to:

•    Provide specialist knowledge in emergency planning and the supporting systems 
•    Assist in the development of UKHSA policies for the development, planning and delivery of emergency preparedness activities
•    Support the EPMs to ensure that plans and response systems are tested and exercised as well as review processes following an incident/ emergency by providing written reports which assess lessons identified
•    Contribute, in support of the EPMs, to the development and delivery of the staff training programme
•    Undergo a programme of on-going development and education to build on existing knowledge and develop skills to meet competencies required to undertake the role
A full list of duties and responsibilities can be found in the job description

Working for your organisation

We pride ourselves as being an employer of choice, where Everyone Matters promoting equality of opportunity to actively encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce.   

UKHSA ethos is to be an inclusive organisation for all our staff and stakeholders. To create, nurture and sustain an inclusive culture, where differences drive innovative solutions to meet the needs of our workforce and wider communities. We do this through celebrating and protecting differences by removing barriers and promoting equity and equality of opportunity for all.  

Person specification

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Working as an Emergency Preparedness Officer (EPO), you will be a key member of the UKHSA SW EPRR team reporting to the Emergency Preparedness Manager (EPM). Your role will involve leading on and supporting elements of the team’s work plan and wider UKHSA SW Business Plan. As an EPO you will be developing an understanding of the cycle of emergency planning and related activities of integrated emergency management (IEM) as this is what the work of the SW EPRR team aligns to enabling UKHSA to fulfil its duties as a Category 1 responder under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (CCA).

The SW EPRR team’s work plan also underpins the corporate Ready to Respond priorities as well as ensuring additional activities are delivered. As a member of the EPRR team you will have an active role in delivering these activities including their monitoring/updating at weekly touchpoint meetings and regular team working days. Examples of current priorities that you will be involved in are:

Stakeholder engagement in the Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) and Local Health Resilience Partnerships (LHRPs) delivering UKHSA duties as a Category 1 responder under the CCA. Working as the Emergency Preparedness Officer you will have an identified locality to support which will include engagement with multiagency partners in the LRF and LHRP business management groups. Within these fora you will be supported by the EPM (and wider EPRR team) to be the UKHSA SW representative ensuring the delivery of our duties under the CCA. 

A significant proportion of your time as an EPO will involve attending, supporting, and engaging with stakeholders at multi-agency meetings. This is critical in developing strong working partnerships and aligns with the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP). The work of the LRFs and LHRPs is prioritised by the outcome of risk assessments as part of the National Security Risks Assessment process where current capabilities and identified gaps are assessed and agreed and Community Risk Register work where we support the information on risks that is shared with the public.  

Your role will also be to ensure stakeholder understanding of the role of UKHSA and/or signpost to UKHSA services to support the local risk assessment process and inform local capability requirements to mitigate the impact of risks. In addition, you will support the scoping, planning, design, and delivery of the required training and exercising materials to enable the effective activation of arrangements in response to incidents.

Training needs analysis; identifying staff training needs by mapping against their development and competency requirements of their role(s). You will be involved in agreeing priorities and then either signposting to available resources or supporting the development of the staff training programme and delivery of bespoke structured sessions (face to face, virtual or hybrid) on aspects of UKHSA and multi-agency EPRR processes, updating these as required.

Debrief delivery and monitoring of lessons identified; following incident response and exercises your role will be to support and, with training, deliver debrief activities, identifying themes and lessons and through root cause analysis (RCA) agree recommendations and actions to enable the learning of lessons. Your role will also include ensuring that lessons identified are entered onto the Lessons Identified Tool that has been developed across the UKHSA regions.

Regional Response Centre (RRC) implementation and administration; each UKHSA region delivers an RRC capability (linking with the National Response Centre (NRC)), and in the EPO role you will be part of a daily rota where you will monitor the RRC email account (along with other key EPRR email accounts) to flag, categorise and respond to emails in accordance with an agreed standard operating procedure (SOP). In this key role there are agreed processes for you follow but you may also be required to use your own judgement and initiative to escalate and respond appropriately, especially where the task is outside of the scope of the existing SOP. 
Your role within the EPRR team will also be to provide a horizon scanning capability, monitoring updates and briefings that are received via emails and intelligence shared at stakeholder meetings and through the Resilience Direct platform, escalating, sharing and actioning as required.

Science and Technical Advice Cell (STAC); UKHSA has responsibility for the coordination of science and technical advice in response to an incident, and for major incidents this may be coordinated through the STAC. As an EPO you will be part of the team supporting the updating and publishing of the plan and the development and delivery of training and exercising of the STAC arrangements, to UKHSA staff and external stakeholders. As an EPO you will fulfil administrative/support roles within the STAC when it is activated either during an incident response or tested in exercises.

Essential criteria - You will be assessed based on the essential/desirable criteria listed in the Person Specification below.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £30,473, UK Health Security Agency contributes £8,227 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

Selection Process:

This vacancy will be assessed using a competency-based framework which will assess your Qualifications, knowledge and experience and / or skills and capabilities outlined in the essential criteria.  

Stage 1: Application & Sift

You will be required to complete an application form. You will be assessed on essential criteria, and this will be in the form of:  

•    A CV/ Application form (‘Employer/ Activity history’ section on the application) 
  •    1250 words Statement of Suitability.

This should outline how you consider your skills, experience, and knowledge, provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with reference to the essential criteria.  

The CV and Statement of Suitability will be marked together.

Unfortunately, late applications will not be considered.

If you are successful at this stage, you will progress to interview & assessment

Please do not exceed 1250 words in your statement of Suitability.  We will not consider any words over and above this number.

Feedback will not be provided at this stage.

Stage 2: Interview

 You will be invited to a (single) remote interview over MS Teams

Knowledge, experience, skills & abilities will be tested at interview 

“Interviews will be held week commencing 5th August. Please note, these dates are subject to change.”

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Location information  

Please note that Hybrid working is not an option at this site. The location is: Bristol BS1 6EH or Totnes TQ9 5NE 

Eligibility Criteria

Open to all external applicants (anyone) from outside the Civil Service (including by definition internal applicants).   

Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is Basic Personnel Security Standard.

Disability Confident scheme  

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.  

Reserve List 

Candidates who pass the interview criteria but are not offered a post will be kept on a reserve list for 12 months and may be contacted if similar roles become available.  

If you are interviewed for the post and do not meet the required threshold for the specified grade, your application may be assessed against a similar, lower grade role and you may be offered the post should one be available.  

Starting salary  

New entrants to the Civil Service are expected to start on the minimum of the pay band.   

The internal roles rules apply to existing Civil Servants, i.e. level transfers move on current salary or the pay range minimum, transfers on promotion move to new pay range minimum or receive 10% increase.   

Either case is determined by whichever is the highest.  

For further details please refer to the Information Sheet- Starting Salaries & Benefits

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.