An Assistant Planner is currently the entry grade for the four tiers of planning posts within Offaly County Council.  These range from Assistant Planner through to Executive, Senior Executive and Senior Planner grades.  Assistant Planners work within the planning section, which is itself currently within the Planning, Heritage, Economic Development, Tourism, Housing including Corporate Buildings and Municipal District of Tullamore Directorate. The section works broadly under four headings as follows: Forward Planning, Development Management, Enforcement (including taking charge of housing developments) and Special Projects (such as greenway development & urban /rural renewal schemes). However, an Assistant Planner will be required to input into multi-disciplinary project teams on occasion, under the direction and line management of a Senior Executive Planner.  Local Authorities also play a key role in supporting economic development and enterprise promotion at a local level. 
The Assistant Planner will from time to time be required to deputise for Executive Planners or more senior personnel and must be willing to take on this challenge. The ideal candidate will be a highly motivated person, with a strong sense of commitment to delivering quality public services and shall demonstrate a clear knowledge and understanding of:

• Local authority services, its key stakeholders and relationships
• Local government structures and its democratic role and mandate
• Current local government issues, future trends and strategic direction of the sector, particularly in relation to planning policy and practice
• Key policies guiding the local government sector
• National, Regional and Local planning issues
• Fostering and maintaining wide ranging productive working relationship both internally and externally to the organisation
• Implementing change
• Public Service values

Further Information can be found in the Candidate Booklet