Compliance and Assurance Lead - Health and Safety

at  Scottish Water

Together we are Trusted to Serve Scotland.
Compliance and Assurance Lead - Health and Safety
At Scottish Water, we are trusted to serve Scotland, ensuring the highest standards in water management. Our work not only keeps the water flowing across the nation but also maintains safety and compliance within our operations. We’re looking for a dedicated Compliance and Assurance Lead – Health & Safety to join our team and enhance our Health & Safety (H&S) frameworks.
You’ll be responsible for the continuous improvement for our H&S framework to make sure compliance and assurance across the organisation, facilitating understanding, implementation, and usage throughout Scottish Water. This role involves monitoring the organisation’s risk profile, tracking mitigating actions, and leading the development of governance and compliance strategies. You’ll work closely with the H&S Field Operations, Construction, and Contracting teams, embedding these practices into Scottish Water’s management culture.
What you’ll do
You’ll design and implement a robust Health & Safety (H&S) framework to ensure compliance and assurance across the organisation. This involves maintaining and continuously improving our systems and processes to meet both corporate and external audit requirements, such as ISO45001. Your work will preserve corporate memory and prepare us for future audits.
You’ll monitor our risk profile, providing clear visibility and tracking progress on mitigating actions. Collaborating closely with Scottish Water’s Corporate Risk and Internal Audit teams, you’ll coordinate the delivery of outputs and actions to meet corporate expectations, keeping us on track and aligned with our goals.
You’ll establish governance structures that integrate seamlessly into our culture, ensuring compliance through an ongoing programme of quality assurance and management reporting. This will involve regular liaison with our Field Operations and Constructions & Contracting teams, where you’ll influence and support the behaviours needed to maintain our high standards.
You’ll serve as the go-to expert on compliance and assurance, advising on H&S risk areas, legal compliance, and developing mitigation strategies. This includes overseeing an assurance mapping framework and maintaining our H&S Specialist Risk Register, Functional Risk Register, and Legal Register. You’ll make sure these are integrated into our corporate management systems like Enablon and Barbour EHS.
You’ll also develop and oversee an audit programme to ensure SMS compliance, establish an internal audit programme for our safety-critical systems, and support strategic improvement projects. Additionally, you’ll ensure the quality and consistency of our H&S training courses and prepare information for external awards, benchmarking exercises, and insurance brokering processes.
What you’ll need
You’ll need a NEBOSH diploma or equivalent, along with solid experience in H&S compliance and risk management. Since you’ll be guiding teams and shaping our H&S culture, strong communication and influence skills are key.
Experience in creating and running H&S frameworks and audit programmes is essential, and you’ll need a full driving license for site visits. Familiarity with ISO45001 and membership in IOSH (especially as a chartered safety practitioner) are big pluses.
Looking out for you
While the work we do is important, we know it’s not the only thing that matters. That’s why we make sure you have everything you need to find a good work-life balance.
You’ll get plenty of time to recharge with 38 days of holiday every year (including public holidays). And you can even buy five more if you need a little extra time. You can also take paid time off to volunteer in your community.
When it comes to major life events we have family-friendly policies around adoption, maternity, and parental leave. And for the everyday? We embrace flexible working.
For your future, there’s our pension (the ‘know-what-you’ll-get-when-you-retire’ kind), as well as life assurance.
As for some nice extras? You can expect an annual company bonus. Not to mention access to SW Splash – handy rewards that can save you money on holidays, bills, and shopping.
The not-so-small print
This role will be a Grade 8. If you’re new to Scottish Water, you’ll join us on a starting salary of £48,900. Performance-driven pay progression would then allow you to move through the range to a maximum of £68,510.
This role is a hybrid role split evenly for remote and office work/ site visits.
If you’re interested in this role – or know someone else who might be - we’ll be accepting applications until midnight on 23rd September 2024.
Job offers at Scottish Water are conditional, and will be confirmed on completion of our pre-employment screening, e.g. referencing, criminal record checks, license checks, etc. Screening is conducted on our behalf by a third party, and must be completed before your start date. Don’t worry - we’ll only start these checks once you’ve accepted an offer.
A few final things worth knowing…
Research shows that some people avoid applying for jobs unless they can meet every single criteria. If you’re interested in this job, but don’t tick all the boxes, apply anyway! We hardly ever hire people who can do every part of a job from Day One. Everyone has a learning curve. So don’t rule yourself out!
Let us know if there are any changes we can make to our recruitment process to help you perform at your best. Lots of our people have disabilities or neurodiverse conditions (including some of our recruiters!). We’re also aware that some people might be experiencing temporary challenges because of life events, like menopause. We’re very used to making adjustments, so please don’t be afraid to ask.
As part of our commitment to developing a flourishing Scotland, it’s important that all our employees are Scottish taxpayers. If you join us, your home address will need to be in Scotland. If you don’t already live here, you’ll need to commit to moving here within your first three months.
Finally (finally!), candidates who haven’t submitted an application in the last 12 months will have their records removed from our recruitment database. You won’t need to do anything. Your data will be automatically deleted.
We’re here to help. Ask us anything at
SWRecruitment@ScottishWater.co.u

Please refer the Job description for details