There isn’t really such a thing as a typical day in the life of an Senior Executive Officer in the Environmental Services Team because the work is so varied – but things you are likely to find yourself doing include:
- Joining the weekly management team meeting in person or online. The Senior Advisors and operations lead meet to review the team’s workload and to ensure work is delivered on time and to an appropriate standard. The meeting is not just about managing workload but also about responding to issues that affect our work (such as new legal rulings). Another important task is to develop ideas on how to improve delivery of our work. There will be opportunities to contribute to the Inspectorate’s response to the Government’s national infrastructure improvement agenda. Our meetings are usually a mixture of in person attendance and online via Microsoft Teams. You will have an important role in relaying key messages and advice to the wider team.
- Reviewing Development Consent Order (DCO) application documents. Each Senior Advisor is allocated a number of Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) and Town and Country Planning Act (TCPA) cases. The great thing about the role is that you could work on an appeal for a small housing development one day or a major offshore wind farm, nuclear power station or airport the next. You will work with the case and legal teams throughout all the phases of the Planning Act process to ensure that national infrastructure inspectors have a robust body of evidence to support their recommendations, for instance through providing scoping opinions or suggesting lines of questioning.
- Meeting a developer to discuss the progress of their DCO application. Providing advice to applicants, either through meetings or written advice, is a key part of your job. You may also be involved in work with other stakeholders such as statutory consultees, for instance by chairing regular liaison meetings or responding to queries.
- Joining a training session with the rest of the team. Keeping your knowledge up to date and sharing it with the team is a key aspect of this role to make sure we are providing the best advice we can. The Inspectorate strongly supports its staff in developing their professional skills and encourages membership of professional bodies. You will be expected to attend five days training per year either as part of group training, attendance at technical conferences or through Civil Service Learning. You might do this informally through meetings or more formal training. You will also have an important role in providing training within the Inspectorate, mainly to your team but also to Inspectors. In addition to developing your professional skills we also encourage participation in volunteering days (the team have been involved in scrub bashing on nature reserves and beach clean ups in the past).
We currently have 2 positions open. Submit your application via Civil Service Jobs
before midnight on 1 May 2023.
To be successful in the role you will need to contribute to a team culture which encourages everyone to not only do their best work but to take ownership of processes and deliverables. We’re a friendly and sociable bunch. The team and the Inspectorate provide a supportive environment where we hope people can develop their careers and be their authentic selves.
We support flexible working - core working hours are 10am - 4pm but around this you can flex standard hours to your working pattern for instance if you have caring responsibilities outside work. We also support hybrid working – as a minimum you would have to come to the office 12 times a year but ideally at least once a week.
