Job summary
About OPSS
Do you care about the safety of products and want to protect people and places? Can we use your skills, knowledge, and experience to enable UK business to thrive? If the answer is yes, then we would like to hear from you!
We are the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS), part of the Department for Business & Trade. We are here for the purpose of making regulation work to deliver real world impact. Regulation is a powerful Government tool to address market failures, influence behaviour and promote positive action. Crafted and delivered well, regulation can be an enabler of growth, innovation, and efficiency.
Since early 2018 we have been building a positive and creative team that enjoys a position of influence and respect within an organisation that continues to grow, most recently with the addition of construction products regulation planned.
Our primary purpose is to protect people and places from product-related harm, ensuring consumers and businesses can buy and sell products with confidence.
Further information can be found on our website here
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles. We embrace diversity and promote equality of opportunity. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. There is a guaranteed interview scheme (DCS) for people with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Products and Sectors Regulation Team, enforces a range of product, environmental and energy efficiency regulations across a wide variety of product types in a number of different sectors. We are working towards providing a regulatory environment in which businesses have the confidence to invest and grow whilst ensuring that consumers and the environment are protected. We do this by taking a risk-based and proportionate approach to our regulatory activities, in accordance with the Regulators� Code. We are continuing to build our regulatory capability, our ways of working, and our staff�s expertise.��
Access and Benefit Sharing Team:�
Our team lead on the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing within the UK. The legislation concerns the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilisation of genetic resources. The objective is the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity through designing and delivering a programme of activity designed to raise understanding and ensure compliance in affected sectors.��
Job description
1. Undertake both proactive and reactive enforcement casework to ensure products placed on the UK market are compliant.���
2. Take the lead on your own enforcement investigations and provide support to other OPSS teams.�
3. Create, maintain, and manage communication with businesses, trade bodies and other organisations, as appropriate to your regulatory area, to deliver clear, supportive and effective advice. ��
4. Develop specialist knowledge in your regulatory area, to help provide the national enforcement perspective to OPSS colleagues in different teams, policy sponsors (where applicable) and other partner agencies.�
5. Undertake regulatory activities in accordance with the Regulators� Code and OPSS� Enforcement Policy.��
6. Review market information, technical files and other documentation across a range of legislation, handling material to the evidential standard where appropriate.��
7. Actively build and maintain relationships across teams within Enforcement and across the office to identify opportunities to add value to your work.�
8. Actively develop yourself as regulator and enforcement officer; with your team, identify and explore innovative ways to increase our regulatory capability and our positive impact, and develop OPSS as an exemplar regulator.�
Person specification
Essential Criteria�
9. They hold a Level 4 Regulatory Compliance Officer Apprenticeship qualification or equivalent level qualification or have reasonable expectation of achieving that qualification within the next two months. (The candidate must be able to formally evidence that they are qualified or studying towards this qualification).
10. A full valid driving licence. If you do not hold a driving licence because of a protected characteristic, please speak to recruitment manager to let them know, and this will be taken into account.�
11. They hold a Biological/Natural Science/Ecology degree or equivalent. ��
12. Experience in an investigatory role in any of the following fields: regulation, enforcement, or compliance. �
Personal Attributes & Skills
13. Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.�
14. Flexibility and ability to adapt to changing workloads and priorities.��
15. The capacity to contribute to and support the delivery of multi-faceted work plans.��
16. Ability to research, understand and assess technical information, filtering and prioritising data to assist in understanding its relevancy in the investigative process.���
17. Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.�
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
18. Communicating and Influencing
19. Changing and Improving
20. Seeing the Big Picture
21. Making Effective Decisions
Benefits
Alongside your salary of �36,583, Department for Business and Trade contributes �9,877 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.
22. Learning and development tailored to your role
23. An environment with flexible working options
24. A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
25. A with an average employer contribution of 27%
We recognise the challenges that people with (multiple) protected characteristics may experience on the job market and in their career progression. We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible, and we hope to attract applications from underrepresented groups, including ethnic minorities, people with a disability, and people with gender diverse identities
Please refer to the attached candidate pack for further information on our benefits.