Incident Training and Exercising Officer - 32025

The Environment Agency are fully committed to having an inclusive workforce to reflect the communities we serve. We welcome applications from all sections of the community wishing to join a workforce which embraces difference and welcomes everyone.

This is an exciting opportunity for a skilled and enthusiastic professional to join us in developing the Environment Agency’s incident management service in Hertfordshire and North London. Within a team of emergency planners, you will support our incident training and exercising portfolio. You will work with colleagues and professional partners to ensure our staff working at strategic, tactical and operational levels are prepared to respond to all types of environmental and flooding incidents. You will:

• Contribute to the development and maintenance of an incident training and exercising plan, prioritising needs around the risk and resource available.
• Participate in the creation and delivery of staff training and exercising, ensuring it is delivered competently and effectively by using assured standards.
• Collaborate with colleagues locally and nationally, contributing to the development our incident training and exercising across the wider organisation.
• Support our multi-agency work, including in the delivery of training and exercising with external partners as part of our Local and Borough Resilience Forum engagement.
• Support the team to the team to carry out its wider emergency planning functions including reviewing existing and emerging risks; updating incident management plans and procedures, and implementing improvements to our incident management systems and ways of working.

Responding to incidents is a central part of what we do. You will be required to have an incident role and make yourself available to respond to incidents or provide business continuity support during an incident. This may attract an additional payment. Full training and workplace adjustments will be available to support you with your incident role.

The Area Incident Team coordinates and assures our incident management activities. We ensure the best delivery of incident response to protect communities and the environment, whilst fulfilling our responsibilities as a Category 1 responder. We work with internal teams and external partners through Local Resilience Forums to assess risks, plan, train, exercise, respond effectively, recover, and learn & improve.

You will have:
• Effective written and verbal communication skills, and use a range of styles to address different audiences.
• Experience of producing and delivering high quality training and exercising.
• Practical experience of responding to incidents; awareness of emergency management and JESIP principles, and an understanding of the Environment Agency’s role as a Category 1 responder.
• Confidence working on your own and collaboratively as part of team.
• Strong organisational skills, able to prioritise a varied workload whilst maintaining attention to detail, ensuring your work is delivered to a high standard.
• Competent IT skills, including confidence when learning new systems.
• Resilience and adaptability under pressure and in changing circumstances.
• Commitment to a culture that promotes equality, diversity, and inclusion; health safety and wellbeing, and to tackling the impacts of the climate and ecological emergency through your work.

Please note this is a 12 month fixed term opportunity. This is a full time vacancy, however we support flexible working and welcome applications for alternative working patterns, including part time.

You will be based from our Welwyn Garden City office. There will be an expectation of regular travel to the office as well as the flexibility to work from home.

Interviews will be in person at our Alchemy office in Welwyn Garden City.

For further information on the role, please download the candidate pack. If you have any further questions, please contact: wfpg_hnl@environment-agency.gov.uk.

Give an example where you have set and delivered high work standards. How have you prioritised and organised tasks and resources to ensure timely achievement of results?

Using an example, provide evidence of your ability to communicate effectively. This should highlight your ability to convey information and ideas clearly, accurately and persuasively through both speech and writing.

Tell us how you have worked co-operatively as part of a team or across multiple teams to achieve a common goal? What was your role and how did you ensure you worked effectively alongside others?

Please note that your answers to the capability questions will be used for shortlisting purposes. Your examples do not necessarily have to be work related, please use the best example from any area of your life. You may find researching the STAR technique (Situation, Task, Action, Result) useful when answering the questions. It is highly recommended that you read this and the EA capability framework before answering.