Trading Standards / Senior Trading Standards Officer WCC618445

Job Details:

Salary range: £40,005 - £54,135 per annum 
Work location: Westminster City Hall, 64 Victoria Street, Westminster, SW1E 6QP
Hours per week: 36 
Contract type: 3x Permanent   
Closing date: 3 November 2024  
Contact details for Informal discussion: Chukwuma Akpom, Team Leader, via email: CAKPOM@WESTMINSTER.GOV.UK

About Us:

THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF MOHAMAD’S CUSTOMER SERVICE SKILLS

Public Protection & Licensing in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories. Where people are passionate about keeping our streets safe and clean.  

Take Mohamad, a City Inspector who looks after the Little Venice ward. No two days are the same for Mohamad when he's out and about conducting ward inspections. He could be doing a licensing premises inspection one day and advising businesses and residents on the proper way to handle their waste on another. But before he joined Westminster, he used to work in banking, where he honed his skills in customer service and people management. 

And those skills matters because, while he occasionally needs to enforce the law, his job is mostly about building strong relationships: educating businesses and residents about the impact of certain enviro-crimes. 

One day he came across some unmarked commercial waste dumped on Edgware Road. Following procedures, he investigated this waste, carefully collecting evidence. Yet, despite his attempts to make contact with the commercial premises, the owners wouldn’t cooperate. Digging deeper, he worked collaboratively with different Westminster departments such as businesses rates and licensing, and discovered multiple businesses registered at the same address. After issuing six different notices, three of the business failed to comply and were successfully prosecuted. 

So while Mohamad’s successfully swapped his financial know-how for expertise in local authority legislation, it’s his people skills and powers of persuasion he’s still proudest of. 

The Role:

As a Trading Standards Officer/Senior Trading Standards Officer you can make your own powerful contribution to Westminster’s success. Our aim is to ensure that all our residents, businesses and visitors enjoy a clean, safe and quiet city, and our Public Protection and Licensing service is at the heart of this ambition. Developing, implementing and enforcing trading standards policies, and using your technical skills and knowledge to protect consumers and businesses by promoting a safe and fair-trading environment, you’ll offer advice on the relevant laws and rights in relation to the buying, selling, renting and hiring of goods and services.

Visiting trading premises to ensure compliance with legislation and investigating complaints from the public with a view to preventing, detecting and taking the appropriate enforcement action, you’ll offer advice and give talks at public events, meetings and exhibitions. Compiling reports, statements, articles and consultation documents, and maintaining accurate records, we’ll expect you to be committed to developing your knowledge and acquiring the experience necessary to maintain a sound understanding of current legislation, policies and procedures.

Your responsibilities will also involve assisting with the achievement of performance targets and standards, and training, supervising and mentoring your less experienced colleagues. We’ll expect you to lead programmes of service development and the implementation of best practice, new developments, enhancements and nationally recognised standards and systems. You’ll also undertake a specialist role in at least one defined area of trading standards, and lead on the delivery of some high profile and complex pieces of work.

Please refer to the Trading Standards Officer Job Description and Senior Trading Standards Officer Job Description for more information. 

About You:

With well developed practical knowledge of trading standards, and recent experience of applying a broad range of enforcement tools, you’ll be a confident negotiator and possess the ability to understand and explain legislation, procedures and requirements. With excellent care and attention to detail, and the interpersonal skills necessary to communicate with people from a diverse range of backgrounds, we’ll expect you to have a good level of technical understanding, the ability to investigate, analyse and provide solutions to problems, and experience of delivering projects related to trading standards.

A diplomatic and collaborative team worker, but also capable of working independently, you’ll possess both assertiveness and tact, the ability to ensure our people represent the communities they serve, and the skills to see that the workplace is supportive, collaborative and respectful. With this is mind you should be fully committed to the principles of equality and diversity, and demonstrate personal leadership on the importance of inclusion. When it comes to qualifications, we’d prefer you to have a degree or diploma in trading standards or consumer protection, or an equivalent relevant qualification or extensive practical trading standards work experience.

We’ll expect you to adopt an Agile work style, and you should also be aware that sometimes you may be required to work outside normal hours, attending meetings, undertaking inspections or speaking to residents. This job is available part-time, as a job-share, or full-time. This is because we want the best people for our roles and recognise that sometimes those people aren’t available to work full-time.

What We Offer:

Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. Westminster City Council’s strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city’s future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe.   
 
At Westminster City Council, we pride ourselves on being an inclusive workplace and employer of choice. We encourage and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that, at all levels, represents the communities we serve. We champion equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, has a sense of belonging and is empowered to be their best, that is the Westminster Way. To find out more about how we do this visit  https://www.westminster.gov.uk/health-and-social-care/public-health-strategy-policies-and-reports/equality-duties  
 
As a forward-thinking Council we appreciate that people work in different ways, therefore our staff benefit from working a range of flexible working patterns as well as Agile working.  
 
The Council is a Disability Confident Employer. If you have declared a disability in your application, we guarantee an interview if you meet the essential criteria of the job. If you are invited for interview, you will be asked if you need any reasonable adjustments in order to attend, and we will make these wherever possible.