Health and Safety Officer

We are looking to recruit a motivated individual to our team of committed Health, Safety, and Wellbeing practitioners, who wants to actively contribute to Brighton & Hove City Council's continual improvement journey and provide direct advice and guidance to the council's Environmental Services section.


Do you:

• Have experience of working as a Health and Safety professional in a large or complex organisation, dealing with vehicle, equipment, waste, chemicals, and site operational hazards
• Relish researching and providing advice and guidance on diverse hazards
• Look forward to being part of a team who carry out supervision checks, inspections and audits, as well as statutory compliance monitoring.
• Have the confidence to act as a main point of contact for a busy service and work with operational staff and managers to deliver on safety priorities
• Have new ideas to bring that improve front line Health and Safety management
• Want the opportunity to develop your Health, Safety, and Wellbeing experience and to develop into more senior roles.

Contract type: This role is permanent.


There is full information about the role below and associated job description but, if you would like an informal discussion, please contact View email address on energyjobsearch.com .

About the role


You will be embedded within the council's Environmental Services department but will be part of a combined multi-disciplinary Health, Safety, Wellbeing, Facilities and Buildings Service, providing advice and guidance, helping to deliver hazard management controls, carrying out assurance activities, developing written information or reports, and delivering training to council staff.


This post operates mainly from Hollingdean Depot which hosts diverse operational teams including refuse and recycling collection, graffiti removal, fly tipping, street cleaning, public toilets and environmental enforcement. You will have the opportunity to directly affect the way Health, Safety, and Wellbeing is managed across the service and support the teams meet their legal requirement for general health and safety matters as well as specific statutory obligations, such as waste operator licensing or HGV driving.


This role will work with a range of stakeholders from front-line operational workers to service managers, and you will have great potential to influence change. Our officers need to be able to give independent professional advice and to be able to contribute to larger or more complex Health, Safety, and Wellbeing matters. You will also need to be able to manage your own time and workloads to match the job demands.


Being part of a larger service, you will have access to other health and safety professionals, as well as subject matter experts in fire safety, water safety, asbestos, premises management, site security, and contract management and so you can draw on their knowledge and experience, as well as working with them to help with your professional development and awareness.


Why work for us?


As a council, we want to:
• be connected
• be confident
• be innovative and creative
• be diverse and inclusive
• be healthy and psychologically safe


For more information about our values and the benefits of working at the council, visit Why work for us which gives details of our wellbeing support, our benefits including leave and pensions as well as details of our training and development.


In return for your skills and hard work, we offer:

• a flexible working week of 37 hours per week (Mon-Fri)
• a central city office base with the opportunity for some hybrid working
• training to help with professional development
• the support of an experienced team of professionals
• paid annual leave and pension scheme

Find out more about our commitment to being a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone can achieve their potential by reading about our fair and inclusive actions, our anti-racism strategy and the work we are doing to encourage a diverse workforce (brighton-hove.gov.uk).


How to apply Please read our Apply for a job at the council pages carefully. They give you all the guidance you need to complete your application as well as information on what will happen after you've submitted your application and at interview.


As part of your application, you will need to provide your education and career history and answer some application/shortlisting questions. Your answers to the application/shortlisting questions are the most important part of your application as they will be used in the shortlisting process to assess whether you meet the essential requirements for the role that are set out in the person specification and to decide whether you should be offered an interview. Before you start your application, please read our Shortlisting questions guidance (brighton-hove.gov.uk) as this gives important advice which will increase your chance of success in the shortlisting process.

AI advice for candidates
We are interested in hearing about your experience and skills in your own words. While we value people who know how to use AI, we ask that you minimise using it in your application.


We are keen to hear how your experience and skills align to our values and the skills and experience needed to perform well in our roles with clear real examples from you. To support you in this, we have guidance on using the STAR model which can help you ensure you are telling us your whole story. We also provide clarity on the skills we are looking for in our adverts and in the job description/person specification attached to each job advert.


All the applications we receive are read by at least two hiring managers and we do not use AI in this process. Our experience of reading applications is that those that have heavily used AI contain generic paragraphs that are strikingly similar to other applicants' responses. This makes it extremely difficult to differentiate between applications, and doesn't give us enough evidence of your individual skills. There is a risk that we will therefore not be able to shortlist you. Instead, we recommend you ensure your application stands out by presenting clear examples of your actual skills and experiences in your own words.

Additional information Your starting salary will be pro rata if the above position is less than 37 hours or term-time only.


We are a workplace that supports flexibility and employee wellbeing in the way we work whilst providing the best service for our customers. Team and service working arrangements are designed to support both employee work life balance and team collaboration. These would be part of your individual working arrangements alongside any personal preference agreed with your manager in advance of joining. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team and travel to and from your contractual location would be at your own expense.