About the job

Job summary

Diverse Perspectives and experiences are critical to our success, and we welcome applications from all people from all backgrounds with the experience and skills needed to perform this role. We look forward to receiving your application.

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.

At HSE, we work with one goal in mind – to help keep Britain’s workforce safe and healthy. Our work touches virtually every sector of Great Britain’s industry. We don’t just inspect workplaces and enforce the law. We campaign for better risk control, providing guidance, regulations, crucial research and statistics, and specialist products and services both here and overseas.

Our team of occupational hygiene specialists work in a wide range of industries with thousands of workers. This role provides a unique opportunity to apply your technical knowledge and practical experience, influencing whole industry sectors as well as helping individual employers understand the right controls to have in place. Contributing to the policy development and industry guidelines will broaden your knowledge and your professional credibility like no other role can. You will see a clear line of sight between your input and reducing ill-health in the workplace.

A career with HSE gives you a rare opportunity to visit and interact with many different and diverse employers and work activities - one day you could be working in a large food factory and the next in a local woodworking shop. You’ll work alongside general inspectors and other technical specialists to ensure work activities are operating within the law by inspecting, investigating, intervening and supporting companies. Working with the widest range of health and safety specialists in Britain, you’ll be helping to protect thousands of people, whilst working in an inclusive environment where all of our people can thrive and be themselves.

Job description

As an occupational hygiene specialist inspector, you will be involved in frontline regulatory work and developing technical policy. You will work as a member of a specialist regulatory team, led by a Principal Specialist Inspector, regulating workplaces to ensure that workplace health risks have been identified, evaluated and eliminated or adequately controlled. Specialist Division provides support to the inspectors in HSE’s Inspection and Investigation Divisions who cover many employment sectors including agriculture, general manufacturing, engineering, waste and recycling, education, health services, utilities and transport, government departments and domestic gas safety.

Frontline regulating is managed regionally in geographically dispersed areas across offices in England, Wales and Scotland. You will provide in-depth technical expertise through planned and reactive support to regulatory inspectors gaining occupational hygiene experience across a wide range of issues and industries, whilst developing skills in intervening in businesses and enforcing the law. You may also be asked to provide independent expert witness input to court, securing justice for sufferers of ill health in the workplace.

Developing operational and technical policy is about influencing and raising standards of control and clarifying legal requirements. You will work with others on projects and initiatives to review and inform health and safety policy, developing guidance and identifying any changes needed to expected standards and published information. You will also work with specialist and non-specialist colleagues helping to influence strategic stakeholders and campaigns.

This is a hugely varied and rewarding role. Whilst there are technical challenges to overcome, you will be working with many different people at every level and every part of your work will be geared to achieving one goal: protecting people's health and safety at work.

At the HSE, in order to fully understand the legal and enforcement requirements of this frontline role, you develop your regulatory expertise by completing a 2 year specialist training programme (the STP), This includes a mixture of e-learning and face to face tutorials. As well as learning on-the-job, you will continue your development. You will also have wider learning opportunities through your Civil Service access. You will receive appropriate training and complete and pass a legal assessment.

You will be office-based but as part of your role, you will be required to inspect and visit sites across Great Britain. This will require regular travel and overnight stays.

At HSE, we are proud to be able to offer our people the opportunity to work in a hybrid way which combines working from home and the office. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and your allocated office will be your contractual place of work. There will be a requirement to travel to the office for various activities e.g., collaborative working, supporting and training colleagues. If hybrid working is suitable for you and your role, the arrangements will be determined primarily by business need, but personal circumstances and other relevant circumstances will also be taken into account. Therefore, we would encourage candidates to consider if the commute from home to the office is a feasible distance to travel before making an application. Please note that if you are successful, hybrid working will be discussed prior to taking up the post.

Person specification

Your role will involve:

• Applying occupational hygiene expertise and provide opinion in a wide variety of workplaces, working on your own or supporting colleagues inspecting, investigating and taking enforcement action where required to secure compliance with the law.
• Forensic analysis following incidents and reported concerns, comparing conditions with minimum legal requirements and good practice to identify underlying causes and support legal action to avoid further risk.
• Providing specialist opinion and expert evidence in reports for legal proceedings and expert witness statements, and when required, presenting these to courts and tribunals.
• Developing an evidence base and advising HSE colleagues working on operational policy, guidance and procedures on occupational hygiene matters.
• Sharing information, including HSE policy, research and guidance, at national and international forums involving other Government departments, professional bodies and trade associations, such as the British Standards Institute and British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS).

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £47,996, Health and Safety Executive contributes £12,958 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

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

Application Information

As part of your application, you will be asked to complete your CV which should display your career history, skills, experience and qualifications.  You will also be asked to complete up to 250 words on the following behaviour; Leadership, by providing examples of:

• Ensure colleagues and stakeholders have a clear understanding of objectives, activities and timeframes.
• Consider the impacts of own and team’s activities on stakeholders and end users.
• Effectively manage conflict.

You will also be asked to complete a Personal Statement (no more than 750 words) that demonstrates how your skills and experience fit the requirements of the job role as outlined in the person specification section above.

You should also provide evidence of:

• Your level of responsibility.
• The breadth and depth of your experience.
• The technical quality and standard of your work.

Application Guidance

Please access the following link for guidance on how to apply and how to complete a personal statement https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/how-to-apply/  

Sift Information

At Sift, you will be assessed on your CV, Personal Statement and Leadership behaviour.

The sift will take place the week commencing 19th February.

Interviews Information

At Interview, you will be assessed against the 3 behaviours and 2 technical skills outlined in the job advert. Please note that as part of your interview you will be required to deliver a 10 minute presentation. Further details of this will be sent out with your interview invite.

The interviews will take place via Microsoft Teams the week commencing 4th March.

Further Information:

Please note that a Reserve List will be held for the period of up to 12 months.

It is the candidate’s responsibility to ensure they are aware of the terms and conditions they will adopt should they be successful in their application.

For a summary of HSE terms and conditions as part of Civil Service Reform, please see the attached document.

Any move to HSE from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at  here

If you have a disability and you need an application form in an alternative format or you would like to know more about our recruitment process, please contact: hr.resourcing-team@hse.gov.uk  

Please note, if you are a current civil servant and you are currently undergoing any of the following formal actions your application will not be progressed any further;

Formal discipline action, any formal action regarding attendance, poor performance or any restriction of duties as a result of disciplinary action.

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. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.