Food Standards Agency
Sunday 7 September 2008
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The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is inviting local authorities in England to apply for 'match funding' for an additional Environmental Health Practitioner (EHP) student placement at their authority.
For the last five years, the Agency has funded a scheme in partnership with local authorities to help address the well-known difficulties in funding placements for environmental health students. Placements are fundamental in enabling EHPs to qualify, and the lack of placements is a significant contributory factor to the present recruitment problems for both professions.
The Agency, along with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services (LACORS) and Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH), have agreed to continue the scheme for the academic year 2008/09.
The Agency is pleased to report that to date, 16 students have benefited from the scheme and 14 local authorities have participated.
We are therefore inviting local authorities in England to apply for match funding from the Agency for an additional EHP student placement at their authority for 2008/09.
Students in the scheme spend approximately six months with central Government departments to acquire relevant experience of various environmental health disciplines, and six months at the local authority. The scheme is applicable to those EHP students completing either the CIEH Practical Training Logbook, or the new Experiential Learning Portfolio (ELP).
For these new placements, local authorities are responsible for recruiting, employing and paying the students. Central Government will pay local authorities an amount equivalent to the salary and on-costs they incur in respect of this employment (while the student is placed with central Government departments). This should be at the same level as the period of placement with the local authority. For their time with central Government departments, students are seconded from local authorities under separate contracts. In addition to food, aspects of health and safety, pollution, contaminated land, noise nuisance and housing are covered during the time students spend with central Government and its partners.
To be eligible to take part in the scheme from September/October 2008, local authorities need to show that they will be using the scheme to recruit and additional student above that planned initially. Local authorities should also provide details of the arrangements they will have in place to support the student. The Agency will select potential local authority partners in consultation with the other Government departments.
Interested local authorities should contact Bob Pilling:
Room 415C Aviation House
125 Kingsway
London WC2B 6NH
email:
robert.pilling@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk
Such expressions of interest should be received no later than 25 April 2008.
If you have any queries, please telephone Bob on 020 7276 843
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