Student placement scheme

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 Environmental Health Practitioners (EHPs) to qualify, and the lack of placements is a significant contributory factor to the present recruitment problems forlocal authorities.

The Agency is pleased to report that to date, 16 students have benefited from the scheme and 14 local authorities have participated.

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 the CIEH Experiential Learning Portfolio (ELP).

Under the scheme, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) invites local authorities in England to apply for 'match funding' for an additional EHP student placement at their authority.

Local authorities are responsible for recruiting, employing and paying the students. The agency pays 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, public health and housing are covered during the time students spend with central Government and its partners.

To be eligible to take part in the scheme, 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 selects potential local authority partners in consultation with the other Government departments.

The Agency’s partners in the scheme are the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Department of Health, Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services (LACORS) and Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH).

Invitations to local authorities to take part in the scheme, which runs over the academic year are normally issued in early March with replies required by the end of April with the placements beginning in September.

For more information about the scheme contact:
Bob Pilling
Room 415C Aviation House
125 Kingsway
London WC2B 6NH

Tel: 020 7276 8436
email: robert.pilling@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk