About the job

Job summary

This position is based at Pippler's Building, Poole, BH15 1HP

Job description

Organisation Details  

The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Driven by government’s aim for clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse oceans and seas, MMO’s purpose is to protect and enhance our precious marine environment, and support UK economic growth by enabling sustainable marine activities and development.

We are the independent regulator for England’s seas, professionally delivering service-focussed outcomes for our customers.

We are a team of around 500 people and combine our Newcastle upon Tyne and London operations with a local presence around the English coastline in Brixham, Beverley, Harwich, Hastings, Lowestoft, North Shields, Hayle, Plymouth, Poole, Portsmouth, Preston, Scarborough, Shoreham, Whitehaven.

We also have colleagues based in Defra offices, including Bristol, Cambridge and York where we share office space.

More information about our work is on the GOV.UK website and you can read the MMO’s Story here.

Job description  

The Marine Officer’s remit is to protect the seas by enabling compliant maritime sectors and undertaking effective and proportionate enforcement activities.

The purpose of this role is to ensure compliance with the sea fisheries legislation, the Marine and Coastal Access Act and other marine environmental legislation.

MMO enforcement activity is predominantly carried out by staff that are located in one of MMO’s 16 coastal offices. Our work seeks to ensure and promote compliance with the European Commission and national sea fisheries regulations, marine licensing and marine nature conservation legislation.

We co-ordinate programmes for monitoring, control and surveillance of sea fishing activity, marine licensable activity and marine conservation measures within the EEZ around the coast of England and for UK vessels outside those waters.

We primarily seek to educate and inform marine sectors to promote compliance with the various regulatory requirements. We also investigate and take appropriate enforcement action, including prosecution, when serious breaches of the regulations are identified.

Activities of Marine Enforcement Officers include:

• Monitoring and assessment of fishing activity through receiving data systems.
• Undertaking risk assessment and intelligence gathering.
• Inspections of fishing vessels in port, and possibly at sea.
• Inspections of fishing industry premises, including fish markets and fish merchants etc.
• Inspections of marine licensable activities.
• Monitoring and inspection of activities which may affect marine protected areas (MPAs) or protected species.
• Undertaking investigations into incidents of non-compliant activities.

Undertaking mandatory training to work towards accreditation to become a warranted Marine Enforcement Officer.

This role is not a conventional 9 to 5 one so occasional unsocial and out of hours works should be expected.

Person specification

Please refer to Job Description

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £27,489, Marine Management Organisation contributes £7,449 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

Please refer to Job Description

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.