Benefits Team Leader
Venesky-Brown’s client, a public sector organisation in Barrhead, is currently looking to recruit a Benefits Team Leader starting in August for an initial 3-month contract, on a rate of £16.80 per hour.
The working hours will be Monday to Thursday 8.45 am – 4.45 pm, and Friday 8.45 am – 3.55pm.
Candidates would require a basic disclosure in place or be willing to apply.
Responsibilities:
– Responsible for the benefits and discretionary payments functions, ensuring cover, dealing with all management processes including recruitment (joint with either the senior Revenues & Benefits officer or the Revenues operations manager) induction and training; health and safety and absence management.
– Provide leadership, direction, and day to day support to the benefits and discretionary payments members and work with other staff to improve all their processes.
– Oversee daily workload ensuring that team members are clear on both team workload priorities and individual priorities. Realign resource as appropriate to ensure priorities are met.
– Maintain a strong performance management environment with the team, including a data-driven approach to daily team tasking meetings with a focus on ‘hotspot’ areas.
– Proactively and professionally manage day to day queries, disputes, and issues, escalating any issues that cannot be resolved timeously.
– Undertake reviews of decisions which have resulted in non-payment of a discretionary housing payment or a Scottish Welfare fund grant.
– Understand the end-to-end processes relevant for the team and ensure staff adhere to all process and control requirements.
– Ensure compliance with all procedures and regulations relevant to the team and escalate and report any non-compliance.
– Be responsible for system testing during upgrades or during business change.
– Follow up on issues identified through the National Fraud Initiative (NFI).
– Manage staff attendance and participation at weekly team meetings and ensure that these are documented and there is appropriate follow-through on actions arising.
– Maintain Standard Operating Procedures and ensure these reflect current processes and controls.
– Support continuous improvement activity, digitisation, and modernisation of the service.
Essential Skills:
– Knowledge of current Housing benefit legislation and Council tax reduction regulations and experience of service delivery.
– Experience of supervision of staff and the ability to delegate and deliver to deadlines
– Experience of developing staff and managing staff performance & accuracy
– Experience in a financial control environment
– Experience of building positive relationships with a variety of stakeholders and resolving problematic situations
– Good organisational skills
– Proven ability to prioritise workload, delegate to and motivate staff
– Comfortable in a target-driven environment and encourages team members to work towards high quality performance
– Experience of working with Microsoft Office (or other similar packages)
– Excellent skills in Microsoft Excel
– Good interpersonal and communication skills
– Excellent customer care skills
Desirable Skills:
– Financial or Revenues based qualification (e.g. CIPFA, IRRV, or equivalent)
– Managerial or supervisory qualification
– Experience of a shared service or high-volume transactional processing environment
– Ability to develop and prepare reports
– Conflict management and negotiating skills
– Willingness to work out of hours as required
If you would like to hear more about this opportunity, please get in touch.
The working hours will be Monday to Thursday 8.45 am – 4.45 pm, and Friday 8.45 am – 3.55pm.
Candidates would require a basic disclosure in place or be willing to apply.
Responsibilities:
– Responsible for the benefits and discretionary payments functions, ensuring cover, dealing with all management processes including recruitment (joint with either the senior Revenues & Benefits officer or the Revenues operations manager) induction and training; health and safety and absence management.
– Provide leadership, direction, and day to day support to the benefits and discretionary payments members and work with other staff to improve all their processes.
– Oversee daily workload ensuring that team members are clear on both team workload priorities and individual priorities. Realign resource as appropriate to ensure priorities are met.
– Maintain a strong performance management environment with the team, including a data-driven approach to daily team tasking meetings with a focus on ‘hotspot’ areas.
– Proactively and professionally manage day to day queries, disputes, and issues, escalating any issues that cannot be resolved timeously.
– Undertake reviews of decisions which have resulted in non-payment of a discretionary housing payment or a Scottish Welfare fund grant.
– Understand the end-to-end processes relevant for the team and ensure staff adhere to all process and control requirements.
– Ensure compliance with all procedures and regulations relevant to the team and escalate and report any non-compliance.
– Be responsible for system testing during upgrades or during business change.
– Follow up on issues identified through the National Fraud Initiative (NFI).
– Manage staff attendance and participation at weekly team meetings and ensure that these are documented and there is appropriate follow-through on actions arising.
– Maintain Standard Operating Procedures and ensure these reflect current processes and controls.
– Support continuous improvement activity, digitisation, and modernisation of the service.
Essential Skills:
– Knowledge of current Housing benefit legislation and Council tax reduction regulations and experience of service delivery.
– Experience of supervision of staff and the ability to delegate and deliver to deadlines
– Experience of developing staff and managing staff performance & accuracy
– Experience in a financial control environment
– Experience of building positive relationships with a variety of stakeholders and resolving problematic situations
– Good organisational skills
– Proven ability to prioritise workload, delegate to and motivate staff
– Comfortable in a target-driven environment and encourages team members to work towards high quality performance
– Experience of working with Microsoft Office (or other similar packages)
– Excellent skills in Microsoft Excel
– Good interpersonal and communication skills
– Excellent customer care skills
Desirable Skills:
– Financial or Revenues based qualification (e.g. CIPFA, IRRV, or equivalent)
– Managerial or supervisory qualification
– Experience of a shared service or high-volume transactional processing environment
– Ability to develop and prepare reports
– Conflict management and negotiating skills
– Willingness to work out of hours as required
If you would like to hear more about this opportunity, please get in touch.
