Leeds City Council
Emergency Planning Officer
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Emergency Planning Officer
Job title: Emergency Planning Officer
Salary: PO2 £39,862 - £42,839
Hours: 37hrs per week
Contract: Full Time, Permanent
Location: Leeds City Centre, surrounding areas & hybrid
As an Emergency Planning Officer, you’ll thrive on protecting communities, strengthening resilience, and ensuring Leeds is ready to respond when it matters most. The role requires a full, valid driving licence and the ability to take part in an out-of-hours on-call rota, providing support during incidents when required.
It’s not about sitting behind plans on a shelf – it’s about real-world impact, working with partners, and helping the city prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies.
Leeds City Council is one of the largest employers in the region with over 14,000 employees. We seek to recruit and develop talented individuals who embody our council values and ambitions
About You
As an Emergency Planning Officer, you will bring to the role:
- Experience or developing knowledge of emergency planning, resilience, and business continuity, ideally within a local authority, public sector or similar environment
- A solid understanding of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and other relevant legislation, guidance and professional standards relating to resilience and emergency preparedness
- Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to build effective working relationships with internal teams and external partners
- The ability to analyse complex issues, interpret legislation and statutory duties, and develop clear, robust plans and reports
- Confidence and capability to plan, organise and deliver training, briefings and exercising activity, helping to build preparedness across services and partner organisations
- Confidence in managing competing priorities and making sound decisions under pressure
- A flexible and resilient approach, including willingness to take part in an out-of-hours emergency rota and occasionally work outside normal hours to engage with communities and support resilience activity
About The Role
This is a great opportunity to contribute to keeping Leeds safe and resilient. You’ll support the Council’s work to prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies, working as part of a small, supportive team at the centre of the Council’s resilience arrangements.
As an Emergency Planning Officer, you’ll help the Council meet its statutory duties under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, supporting key activities across emergency planning and business continuity management. This will include assisting in the development and maintenance of plans, supporting training and exercises, and working with services to strengthen their preparedness.
You’ll work closely with council services, emergency responders, voluntary organisations, and regional partnerships such as the West Yorkshire Resilience Forum. A key part of your role will be supporting services to embed business continuity planning, helping them maintain critical functions during disruption and ensuring alignment with legislation and good practice. You will also engage with local communities and partners, helping to build awareness, preparedness and community resilience, this may occasionally involve meetings or events outside of normal working hours.
The role sits within the Resilience & Emergencies Team, where you’ll contribute to delivering robust, legally compliant planning, training and response arrangements, while building your knowledge, skills and experience across a wide range of resilience activities.
We support flexible working arrangements, recognising the importance of work-life balance, alongside the need for flexibility to respond to incidents and community needs when they arise.
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What We Offer You
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We take pride in offering the best employee experience, with benefits including:
- a competitive salary and annual leave entitlement plus statutory holidays
- membership of the West Yorkshire Pension Fund with generous employer contributions
- flexible and hybrid working arrangements subject to service requirements
- a clear career pathway and continuing professional development opportunities
- a range of staff benefits to help you boost your wellbeing and make your money go further
How To Apply
Please complete the online application form.
Read our guidance for further advice on completing your application.
If you have any queries or would like an informal chat about the role please contact Leanne Cummings, Resilience & Emergencies Team Manager. Call 0113 3788673 or email leanne.cummings@leeds.gov.uk.
We welcome applications from everyone and actively seek a diverse range of applicants from all backgrounds and cultures. We particularly encourage applications from, but not limited to, women, carers, veterans as well as LGBT+, ethnically diverse, disabled and care experienced people.
This role is based in the UK. Home Office guidance states that candidates must evidence their right to work in the UK prior to commencing employment, either as a UK or Irish citizen, under the EU Settlement scheme or having secured any other relevant work visa.
If you do not have the right to work in the UK, you must consider your own eligibility for sponsorship for a particular role through the Skilled Worker visa route before applying. To be eligible for sponsorship you'll usually need to be paid the standard salary rate of at least £41,700 per year or meet one of the other eligibility criteria. Please ensure you are eligible before applying.
Job Description
Job Purpose:
Leeds City Council is required under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 to meet a range of statutory resilience duties and responsibilities, including emergency planning and business continuity. The purpose of the Emergency Planning Officer role is to co-ordinate and work with all Council services, external partners and voluntary organisations to ensure that hazards and threats are identified and managed. This includes work in anticipation, assessment, prevention, preparation, and response and recovery management.
Responsibilities:
- Flexible and adaptable to change to assist other services as required commensurate to grade
- Participate in appraisal, training, and development activities as necessary to ensure up to date knowledge and skills
- Improve own practice through observation, evaluation, discussion with colleagues and appropriate CPD programmes.
- To work collaboratively with colleagues, knowing when to seek help and advice.
- Contribute to the overall ethos, work, and aims of the service by attending relevant meetings, training days/events as requested.
- Be aware of and comply with Leeds City Council policies and procedures e.g., child protection, health, safety and security, confidentiality, and data protection, reporting all concerns to an appropriate person
- Be aware of and support difference and ensure equality for all working in an anti-discriminatory manner, upholding, and promoting the values, standards, and equal opportunities of Leeds City Council.
- Recognise and appropriately challenge any incidents of racism, bullying, harassment, victimisation, and any form of abuse of equal opportunities, ensuring compliance with relevant policies and procedures.
- The duties outlined are not meant as an exhaustive list and will also comprise any other duties within the spirit of the post commensurate with the job evaluation outcome for this post.
- The Council has adopted a flexibility protocol and this role will be expected to work within these parameters.
- To be part of a team working together to ensure that the Council complies with its duties under the requirements of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and implementation of the objectives of the LCC Resilience Policy including:
- Ensuring that hazards and threats to Council and City resilience are identified and assessed and that plans and arrangements are developed and maintained in readiness to respond (this includes maintenance and development of the Council’s Incident Response Plan).
- Assist with embedding emergency and business continuity planning in the organisations culture.
- Providing advice and support to directorates and external organisations in the preparation of their emergency and business continuity planning arrangements and reviewing the adequacy of emergency preparedness and response activities.
- Ensuring that arrangements are in place to mobilise and manage the Council’s response to an emergency including effective liaison and co-operation with the emergency services and other partner agencies.
- Ensuring that information and alerts for staff, elected members and the public are effectively disseminated.
- Design, development and delivery of resilience related briefings, training and exercises.
- To build interoperability with representatives of partner agencies (including participating with the West Yorkshire Resilience Forum) to develop multi-agency working
- To support the co-ordination of a Council response to an emergency incident including provision of advice and judgement on the best course of action to managers, officers, elected members, the public and officers from partner agencies
- To support Directorate Resilience Groups in ensuring that directorate level capability is in place and maintained to be able to respond to incidents and emergencies.
- To research, develop and implement policies, projects and initiatives relating to resilience, emergency planning and security including responding to changes to current and proposed legislation. This includes input at local, county, regional and national levels.
- To take part in the on-call ‘out of hours’ rota for emergency incidents (for which additional payment is received) including authorisation to act on behalf of the Resilience and Emergencies Team Manager in the event of ‘out of hours’ incidents. This requires remaining in areas of ICT connectivity whilst ‘on-call’.
- Provision of resilience related advice and guidance for communities, businesses, and voluntary sector organisations.
- Preparation of reports, briefing notes and situation reports for senior managers, elected members etc. as required.
- To develop, direct and/or play into exercises with Council staff and external agencies to maintain emergency preparedness at local and countywide levels.
- To ensure that appropriate technical and communications support is in place to underpin emergency planning and response capabilities.
- To work flexibly across a range of thematic areas which might include;
- Safety Advisory Groups (Events)
- Mass fatality planning
- Reception Centre co-ordination
- Emergency and Business Continuity planning
- Community resilience initiatives
- Command, Control and Communication
- Cyber security
- Evacuation planning
- Counter Terrorism
- Warning & Informing
- Severe weather and flooding
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