Principal Regulatory Services Officer (Port Health)

The Service

The Regulatory Services team is responsible for delivering a pest control service and the regulation of clean air, port health border controls and sampling, health and safety, food safety and standards, animal welfare, communicable diseases, statutory nuisance, environmental permitting, rogue and fraudulent traders, fair trading, product safety, intellectual property crime, age restricted sales, petroleum and explosive safety.

Portsmouth City Council owns and runs Portsmouth International Port and is the Statutory Harbour Authority and Competent Harbour Authority. Our Port Health responsibilities include imported food controls, international health regulations, international catering waste enforcement, food hygiene, shellfish and water quality monitoring.

At Portsmouth City Council we’re all about developing our staff, because we want to build a bigger and better city but we need the best employees to do so.

Portsmouth International Port serves the western routes into Europe and is also often the ferry port of choice for businesses exporting from the western half of the UK - as an example we have businesses using our ferry port to export fish from Scotland to Spain.

What is the role?

The Principal Regulatory Services Officer Port Health is the senior investigator, regulator and decision maker of the Regulatory Services team and is responsible for the delivery of regulatory actions in the Port Health team delivering the authority’s enhanced Port Health functions at the end of the EU exit transition period dealing with consignments entering the UK through Portsmouth International Port.

As a senior regulator the role will focus upon legislative compliance supporting Service Leads and the Regulatory Service Manager in matters including, but not limited to:

• ensuring that food and feed checks a delivered to ensure that only products that are safe to eat enter the food chain, animal and public health is safeguarded and compliance with EU / UK rules and international trading standards are secured
• preventing and controlling the incidence of infectious disease and food-borne infection
• ensuring the certification of food products for exportation / importation is correct and effectively managed
• lead in the surveillance for other animal diseases and administration of the Pet Travel Scheme
• lead in managing provision of a quality regulatory service in Port Health, ensuring a high level of customer service whilst working effectively with business to protect public health
• responsible for the delivery of projects, enforcement proceedings and complex casework
• carry out regulatory inspections and manage and maintain risk assessments

Who is the person?

You will need to be able to balance prescriptive proactive regulatory regimes with those relating to reactive responses to complaints / breaches of legislation, and service demands at the port, together with gathering intelligence on and assessing criminal activities or noncompliance through information received from third parties. The success of their actions requires a predisposition to manage the Port Health function within a challenging environment.

You will be required to hold one of the following:

• a degree in environmental health or a relevant professional qualification such as:
  • The Higher Certificate in Food Control
  • Diploma/Higher Diploma in Consumer Affairs and Trading Standards with food service delivery module*

(*able to prove compliance with elements of the necessary competence framework as defined by the Food Law code of Practice (FLcOP))

Additionally, the post holder will have:

An understanding of the workings of a Border Control Post, as well as working knowledge of official control programs.

You will need to have excellent working knowledge of EU and national legislation, along with extensive regulatory experience.

You will be able to demonstrate a working knowledge of enforcement using PACE, CPIA and RIPA demonstrating compliance with various enforcement codes and how to gather admissible evidence.

The role requires an understanding of specialist auditing and quality assurance standards.

An understanding the full range of enforcement sanctions and appropriate application of law.

The ability to respond effectively to complaints about the service from dissatisfied customers and enquiries from elected members.

You must have a high level of IT literacy and presentation skills to effectively engage with those you regulate.

Delivering out of hours services demand and participation in service rotas / shift work and a full driving licence.

What you’ll get in return

As well as competitive pay you’ll receive all the benefits of working within a local authority organisation, which ranges from flexible working hours to a fantastic pension which allows you the opportunity to pay in more for that greater return.

Annual leave starts at 26 days going up to 30 days and staff discounts for travel and local shops. We wish to support all our staffs development throughout, if that’s progression planning, or involvement within the on the job apprenticeship scheme, we will work together to drive your career.

Additional information:.

All employees and third parties working at PIP are subject to a Substance Misuse - Drug & Alcohol Testing Policy and the Port reserves the right to carry out with cause and random testing.

How to apply:

Ensure you complete the application form in its entirety, or you may not be shortlisted.

Please read the "Job Profile" to ensure your application meets the requirements of the role and you fully demonstrate how you meet the points on the job profile. If you wish to send a CV, please consider a cover letter outlining why you are the perfect candidate for this position.

We look forward to speaking with you soon.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

As part of any recruitment process, Portsmouth City Council collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. Portsmouth City Council is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

Completing and sending an application in for a vacancy is your consent for us to process your data for the purpose of recruitment. Your data is not used in any other way and you can withdraw your consent at any point in the recruitment process and we will destroy or delete your information.

For more detailed information on what we collect, how we use, store, delete data and your rights you can access a privacy statement on our Job board.

If you have any queries, contact us on 023 9284 1191 (8:30am to 5:00pm Monday to Thursday, 8:30am to 4:00pm Friday).

You will need to demonstrate that you have the Right to Work in the UK. No post will be offered without it.