Benefits-Blue Badge Officer

Salford City Council

Salford Civic Centre

Chorley Road

Swinton

M27 5BN

Benefits - Blue Badge Officer

Working Hours: 36

Grade: 2C, £27,334 - £29,269

Contract Type: Fixed Term until 31 March 2025

Location: Civic Centre with potential to work from home / Hybrid – combination of home and locality based in the community.

Closing Date: 3rd March 2024, 23:59

Shortlisting Date: week commencing 4th March 2024

Interview Date: 11th March 2024

About us

Salford has changed and is continuing to change; at the heart of our approach are ambitious plans to transform Salford into a modern global city where we can all make a real difference to the lives of Salford people. As a people centred and values-based organisation Salford really is a great place to work. With a positive permission culture and can-do approach, we embrace innovation and encourage performance.

We currently have an exciting vacancy within our team to enable us to continue to build on our success and bring new experience, knowledge, and ideas into the team.

Our team is a great place to work. We believe in putting people (staff, partners, and customers) at the heart of service development and they are the driver for everything we do. We want to ensure our service allows people to lead the best life that they can. This is a great opportunity to join a forward-thinking team who will offer you the support you need to succeed.

About you

We are looking for an enthusiastic and dedicated person and your style and approach will reflect our values:

• you will be passionate about what you do always striving to improve things;
• valuing and respecting others’ contribution, you will work together to deliver a better service;
• you will take pride in always getting things right first time and learn from when things do go wrong;
• you will enjoy taking personal responsibility to resolve issues and change what you do and how you do it to make a difference.

General Requirements

• You will have strong basic English and Maths skills, be comfortable to learn and use a variety of IT systems and have experience of using packages such as Microsoft Outlook and Word.
• A flexible approach and ability to adapt to and embrace change are essential.
• You will have great attention to details and the adaptability required to perform a varied role.
• You will be highly organised and able to work to deadlines.
• You will have a positive attitude and be approachable.

Experience in Housing Benefit, Council Tax Reduction and Blue Badge processing and administration would be desirable but not essential. As part of our commitment to you, we will be putting you through your training so you will be able to learn and understand council policies and legislation and apply it to the role.

Especially during these challenging times for many of our customers, you will need excellent customer service skills, be keen to learn and share good practice and skills. You will need to possess strong interpersonal skills to be able to communicate effectively with a varied range of customers and colleagues and have experience of working under pressure. You will be keen to offer ideas and solutions to solve problems and improve our service delivery.

You will be able to work efficiently across a number of IT systems and be a keen to promote and encourage a digital first approach to deliver a quicker, easier, and better service to all our customers.

About the role

Our Benefits/Blue Badge officers make sure that our customers receive the right amount of Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax Reduction at the right time and those applying for a Blue Badge are assessed correctly.

Our customers use a variety of channels to contact us including telephone, Live Chat, face to face, digital forms, email and by post and you will be at the front of the business answering these customer enquiries.

You will process applications, provide information to our customers using all available channels, update accounts, make decisions on the best way to support our customers and sign post them for additional support where appropriate.

The role involves interacting with an extremely diverse range of customers, colleagues, clients, and partners, and helping to resolve any issues and problems which occur, some of which may be complex in nature.

You will work as part of a team delivering excellent customer service to the residents of the city.

Role Profile.pdf

Please be aware that this post is subject to a basic Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and that you will be required to meet the cost of the DBS check. The cost of this is currently £21.00. The payment for this will be deducted from your first four months’ salary payments at a rate of £5.25 per month. If you do not commence employment for any reason but the DBS has been processed, you will be sent an invoice for the payment of £21.00.

If you have lived or worked abroad for 3 months or more in the last 5 years or 12 months or more (whether continuously or in total) in the last 10 years whilst aged 18 or over, please refer to the link below for details for how to obtain your Certificates of Good Character.https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-records-checks-for-overseas-applicants

About the benefits

You will be welcomed into a friendly environment where your personal and professional development will be encouraged. You will have the opportunity to work and grow in a people-centred and values based organisation that promotes a positive permission culture. Your opinions matter so you will have the opportunity to shape how we do things through our Salford 100 employee group and our employee led redesign approach. Your work-life balance and wellbeing are important to us so you will have access to a range of benefits including flexible working, green travel scheme, pension scheme, salary sacrifice schemes, and a range of health and wellbeing options to suit your needs.

Diversity and Inclusion

We are committed to developing a culture which respects individuals, appreciates difference and allows everyone regardless of background to reach their full potential. We are proud to be an accredited disability confident employer and a Stonewall Diversity Champion. We understand how hard it can be to combine caring for a loved one with work, so we aim to provide support and flexibility to balance family and caring responsibilities with work https://greater.jobs/content/9189/diversity-and-inclusion

Continuous service commitment

New employees can now keep their service related benefits when moving between a whole host of public sector organisations within Greater Manchester. These include: Councils, NHS, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue, Transport for Greater Manchester, as well as many others.

Our core data protection obligations and commitments are set out in the council’s primary Recruitment and Employment Privacy Notice which can be found at https://www.salford.gov.uk/gdpr .

We have made a commitment to improve the employment opportunities for people with disabilities, care leavers, carers, and ex-military personnel by way of a Guaranteed Assessment Scheme. Our application forms ask you to indicate if you meet any of the criteria within this scheme, and so to find out more and if you qualify please visit: GreaterManchester Guaranteed Assessment Scheme | greater jobs

£27,334

temporary

full time