Compliance Officer
Team: DEI - Planning Enforcement
Job Family: Providing - CBG8
Salary: £31,022 to £33,851 per annum
Hours: 37 hours per week
Location: You will be expected to attend a CBC office location as often as needed to carry out your role, which will be no less than once per month.
Contract Type: Hybrid - Permanent
Closing Date: 18th January 2026
Interview Date: 22nd January 2026
About the role
The role of the Compliance Officer is to ensure compliance with planning permissions and relevant planning regulations through proactive monitoring and investigation of development activity. To assist in maintaining the integrity of the planning system by identifying, assessing, and addressing breaches of planning control in a proportionate and effective way.
Main areas of responsibility
To proactively monitor development sites to ensure adherence to approved plans and planning conditions and maintain a register of sites requiring ongoing compliance checks including large developments. To check compliance with planning conditions, legal agreements, and prior approvals.
To investigate complaints of non-compliance with planning conditions and undertake site visits to assess and gather evidence to determine whether breaches of planning control have occurred.
To liaise with planning officers to understand the planning history and determine if enforcement action is necessary or expedient. To liaise and advise developers, landowners, and members of the public on how to achieve compliance with planning conditions or unauthorised development.
To prepare and issue formal enforcement reports such as breach of condition notices and stop notices. Draft reports and recommendations for legal proceedings and planning committees and liaise with legal teams to initiate prosecutions when necessary.
The Compliance Officer will be expected to maintain accurate and up-to-date case records, reports, and correspondence and be able to work with other departments within the Council (e.g. legal, building control, environmental health) to engage with members of the public, developers, agents, and councillors.
Responsibilities will also include attendance at internal and external meetings from time to time and contribute to corporate-led and other initiatives where coordinated joint enforcement action may be needed.
Candidates must have a strong knowledge of UK planning legislation, particularly relating to planning compliance and enforcement.
They must have excellent written and verbal communication skills and strong investigative and analytical skills. The candidate must have the ability to manage a varied caseload, work independently and conduct site visits, including in rural, urban, or construction environments.
Our Offer
We have a number of rewards and benefits available to our staff, to view these please visit our Rewards and Benefits page
Our aspiration is to be a truly flexible employer. We welcome discussion on location, hours and working pattern as part of the application process.
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You will be expected to demonstrate how you meet the key accountabilities and competencies in this Recruitment Pack.
Our Competency Framework and Qualification Guidance are to be read in conjunction with our Recruitment Pack.
For an informal discussion about this position, please contact: Rebecca Rousell Planning Enforcement Team Leader at Rebecca.rousell@centralbedfordshire.gov.uk or call 0300 300 6665
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To maintain a fair and consistent approach for applicants, it is Central Bedfordshire Council's policy to only consider applications made via our online application system and we therefore thank you for not submitting your application offline.
Our National Careers Service team offer a free monthly workshop covering CV writing and how to complete the statement sections of the Central Bedfordshire Council online application form. This MS Teams workshop is open to anyone from the UK and lasts around 1.5 hours. Please book your place here.