Veterinary Adviser Border Controls

Are you a veterinary leader who can influence operational excellence across border controls?

Would you like to play a vital role in maintaining safe and lawful trade across UK borders?

If so, we would love to hear from you!

APHA is a brilliant place to work where our people feel valued, have a voice and can be their authentic selves. We value difference and diversity, because it helps us be more innovative and make better decisions.

We are dedicated to being an inclusive employer, offering equitable opportunities for all individuals. Our goal is to build a diverse workforce, and we hope to attract applications from all backgrounds and underrepresented groups.

We have an exciting opportunity for a Veterinary Advisor (VA) Border Controls to join our Scotland Field Operations team. As part of this tactical and operational leadership role, you will provide credible veterinary leadership to support and assure high-performance delivery across a geographically dispersed, multidisciplinary team, both during and in between disease incidents and outbreaks. This role plays a key part in ensuring that import and export controls are applied consistently, proportionately and lawfully, with due regard to biosecurity, animal welfare, regulatory compliance and customer service.

You will be accountable for working with Veterinary Leads in Scotland to deliver excellence in state veterinary operational delivery, stakeholder engagement and customer service through the effective application, quality assurance and enforcement of veterinary public health policies and regulatory measures.

The role involves a wide range of work including, but not limited to, the following:

• Provide credible veterinary leadership and expert advice on the delivery of border control activity in field operations
• Provide expert veterinary advice in the design and implementation of trade policies
• Support operational excellence in veterinary service delivery through the effective application, quality assurance and enforcement of veterinary public health policies, procedures and controls
• Provide technical oversight and assurance for the application of import and export requirements, including the interpretation of health certification, documentary requirements, compliance decisions and regulatory controls for relevant consignments
• Work with operational teams, veterinary field inspectors, Border Control Post staff, policy colleagues and other partners to ensure consistent decision‑making and efficient delivery of border controls activities, while ensuring operational excellence in a nationally aligned subject area
• Identify training and development needs for frontline staff and contribute to training, mentoring and professional support to build capability and resilience in border control delivery
• Build effective working relationships with delivery partners and stakeholders involved in the end-to-end border journey, supporting continuous improvement and customer service
• Support nationally aligned ways of working, assurance activity and dissemination of best practice in relation to border control policy and operational delivery
• Promote compliance with animal health and welfare requirements and ensure that proportionate enforcement action is supported where required
• Contribute to incident management and outbreak response
• Participating in an on-call rota will be required as part of the role, which attracts an allowance
• Line management responsibilities as required

We are looking for candidates who can demonstrate the following skills and experience:

• Veterinary expertise & policy delivery: Extensive experience of statutory and non-statutory animal health and welfare policy, risk management, enforcement and disease control, supported by a strong background in State Veterinary Medicine and successful policy delivery. Applicants must demonstrate experience of applying live animal import controls (at the border and inland) and managing import and export approval schemes, including but not limited to Poultry Health Scheme, compartmentalisation and Balai approvals.
  
  This is an essential requirement and must be clearly evidenced within the application.
• Prove…