Health & Safety Senior Adviser (Ref: 5425)

East Midlands (England), East of England, London (region), North East England, North West England, South East England, South West England, West Midlands (England), Yorkshire and the Humber

This is a National Role

About NE (Natural England)  

We are the Government’s Adviser for the natural environment, playing a vital role in delivering the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan, an ambitious vision which brings new opportunities to protect and enhance and to achieve real outcomes for the environment. 

Find out more about the work of Natural England at www.gov.uk/government/organisations/natural-england 

About the Team

This role sits within our Health and Safety Team, as part of Operational Delivery, supporting the whole of Natural England.

We provide professional advice, guidance and assurance to colleagues in relation to the health and safety risks posed to staff, volunteers, contractors and the public by Natural England’s work activities to ensure colleagues are able to make sensible decisions that safeguard themselves and others from harm.

We particularly encourage applications from H&S professionals with experience of wellbeing and/or leadership.

About the role

Health and Safety concerns all risks that may cause injury or ill health including matters related to wellbeing and mental health such as work-related stress. The remit is organisational wide and may be reactive and proactive in nature.

Senior Advisers are assigned a series of projects each. They are required to lead on and deliver against set timescales, make decisions that improve any impact on performance and demonstrate effective peer leadership including influencing and engaging with internal and external stakeholders.

Each Senior Adviser will act as business partner for 1-3 Area Teams or Directorates which may comprise of between 50-300 colleagues.

Senior Advisers may have responsibility for budgets as defined for a specific project or work area and be required to ensure value for money and corporate compliance with organisational and finance and procurement rules.

The role requires a broad knowledge of NE’s purpose and the relevant frameworks and practical activities that may impact or influence the effective delivery of project results.  

Your responsibilities will be as follows: 

Provide professional advice and guidance to Area Team/Directorate colleagues, line managers and H&S Leads on the health and safety risks posed to staff, volunteers, contractors, and the public by Natural England’s work activities to ensure they have the information needed to manage those risks effectively. 

Support and steer senior leaders and their teams regarding their H&S responsibilities to ensure they have the information needed to manage the H&S risks across their Area Team/Directorate. 

Respond to serious H&S incidents by liaising with witnesses, injured persons, the Regulator and senior leaders to ensure a full investigation is carried out and responsive actions are taken to prevent a recurrence. 

Review all incidents and near hits for your assigned Area Teams/Directorates and support line managers with their investigations to ensure risks are identified, mitigating actions are put in place and learning is shared. 

Produce or review H&S policies and guidance in line with relevant legislation, industry best practice and Natural England policy to provide clear accessible information that supports colleagues to make good choices about risk management for themselves and others. 

Undertake audits and inspections of activities and processes to provide assurance on the management of risk in accordance with NE’s H&S requirements to allow leaders to know if risks are managed well and where improvements need to be made. 

Share intelligence from customer interactions and professional networks to help inform the organisation’s strategic approach to risk. 

Lead and make significant contribution to their area of expertise in H&S to ensure that their projects and work objectives are delivered in accordance with agreed timescales.  

Benefits

Wherever possible Natural England accommodates requests for both full-time and part-time hours and other flexible working patterns to help employees achieve a good work/life balance and maintain their health and wellbeing. 

Natural England provides excellent opportunities for career progression, training and development tailored to your role. From induction to ongoing learning and development, everyone in Natural England is supported to develop their skills and capabilities. Everyone has 10 days to devote to personal learning and development, as well as an additional 3 days to volunteer. 

You will have access to Civil Service Pension and benefits arrangements and generous leave allowances (33 day per year pro rata), as well as flexible working, to help you achieve a work-life balance that works for you and us. 

You will have access to a range of benefits including discounts on shopping vouchers, cycle to work scheme, and childcare vouchers. You can also join the Civil Service Sport club which offer discounts on a range of sports and leisure opportunities as well as social events. 

Natural England is a fantastic place to work, where difference is celebrated. 

We’re committed to fairness and equality for all, so you feel valued for who you are and what you do. Our shared values help us work together to benefit the communities we serve. Our thriving employee-led diversity networks support our inclusive culture and contribute to our Diversity Action Plan. 

Locations

Natural England is adopting hybrid working – which means our staff work from a flexible range of locations, encompassing home, offices (ours and our partners) and relevant sites. All new staff will be formally linked to one of our 25 offices across England and the expectation is that all new staff will be able to access their local office to be part of the community of staff in their geographical area. Full time staff are expected to attend their associated office for a minimum of one day a week. 
 
Staff members are required to carry out all their duties working in this way and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time. Travel expenses will be paid if work related travel is required but does not apply to travel between home and your associated office.  

National team roles can be linked with any Natural England office while Area Team roles will be linked with an office in the relevant geographic area.  

View a map of our office locations here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/natural-england-office-locations 

Pay 

It is Natural England policy to employ at the entry point of the salary range. 

How to apply

We welcome and encourage applications from everyone but would particularly welcome applications from those communities which are currently less well represented in our workforce. At present this includes people from minority ethnicity backgrounds and people with disabilities.

Natural England is accredited to the Disability Confident Scheme, which denotes organisations which have a positive attitude towards disabled people. Disabled applicants who meet the minimum requirements for the role at the shortlisting stage are guaranteed an invitation to interview.

If you require a reasonable adjustment at interview, or there is anything else you would like the panel to take into consideration, you should notify us of this at application stage where possible, or well in advance of your interview.

Natural England is currently trialling the provision of outline interview questions for some vacancies in advance of the interview itself. This means that for this role, if you are selected for interview, we will let you know the core questions we will be asking you at your interview, 48 hours in advance.

This vacancy uses competency-based assessment.

We will assess you against the competencies below during the selection process:

• Technical skills and knowledge
• Working Safely
• Work Delivery
• Personal Effectiveness

When completing the application form you should present relevant examples using the STAR format. Give us an example of how you have demonstrated the competency (which can be work related or from another area of your life) and tell us about the Situation, the specific Task you had to undertake, the specific Actions you took, and the Result (both immediate and in a wider context) of your doing so.

Examples should be given in no more than 250 words for each competency.

Competencies

Competence 1  

Professional competency

Technical Skills and Knowledge

• NEBOSH certificate in Occupational Safety & Health (Essential)
• Robust and current knowledge of H&S legislation (Essential) 
• Recent experience in a H&S advisory role (Essential) 
• An understanding of how wellbeing and health & safety are intrinsically linked (Essential)
• NEBOSH Diploma in Occupational Safety (Desirable)
• Project management skills (Desirable)

Competence 2  

Professional competency

Working Safely

• Apply relevant legislation and best practice in a meaningful way to Natural England to support sensible risk management across all teams (Expert)
• Develop, deliver, and monitor training and guidance that enables people to work in a healthy and safe way (Expert)
• Provide professional advice to individuals and teams on health, safety, and wellbeing (Expert)

Competence 3  

Professional competency

Work Delivery

• Manage and deliver your work to meet agreed targets and deadlines (Expert)
• Handle data responsibly, understand your role in good governance, and comply with delegations, policies, and procedures (Practitioner)

Competence 4  

Professional competency

Personal Effectiveness

• Be ambitious, identify and adopt ways to make improvements in your team and your organisation and inspire others to act (Practitioner)
• Make and explain objective decisions which combine your professional judgement and evidence (Expert)
• Act with integrity, addressing challenging issues and managing conflict through being open and objective (Practitioner)

Contact point for applicants.

Name:  Max Marie or Noémie Allard-Robitaille

Email:  maxine.marie@naturalengland.org.uk or noemie.allard-robitaille@naturalengland.org.uk

Telephone: 07788 187 973 or 07584 491 686

Please refer to Job Description

NEBOSH certificate or equivalent

Alongside your salary of £33,736, Natural England contributes
£9,142 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.

Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).

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Job contact :

• Name : Max Marie
• Email : maxine.marie@naturalengland.org.uk
• Telephone : 07788 187973

Recruitment team

• Email : defra-recruitment-enquiries@gov.sscl.com