Finance & Collection Officer - Internal

To apply for this job you must be an employee of Kirklees Council for the duration of the recruitment process – up to and including the start date - and have successfully completed your probationary period.

Please note that if you work for an Academy you are not an employee of the Council.

You will be working as part of a large team within Client Financial Affairs (CFA) but may be required to work in any of Welfare and Exchequer depending on the needs of the service. You will be office based and will liaise with other officers across CFA and Social Work and Health staff  as required on a daily basis.

In this role, you will carry out financial assessment to inform clients of their financial contribution for the provision of their social care needs. This includes responsibility for the appropriate billing and collection of contributions, processing Direct Payments for clients who wish to manage their own finances or organising finances for those clients who are managed by the Council under powers granted by the Court of Protection.

CFA works closely with key partners across the Council, such as Social Services, Health and Housing Services, its key functions are:

• Carrying out and reviewing financial assessments - to pre-determined criteria - of service users that have been assessed by social work colleagues for services such as residential care, respite care, home care and day care.
• Managing finances for service users that are unable to manage their own finances. This includes obtaining a Court of Protection or Appointeeships and arranging Public Health Funerals.
• Raising business invoices for Social Care and Wellbeing.
• Payment and allocation of business invoices for Social Care and Wellbeing.
• Collection of income for Social Care and Wellbeing.

The service is committed to providing a range of responsive high quality services and information to service users, their representatives and other relevant parties. Services are provided in accordance with relevant legislation, Kirklees policies and the requirements of the service such as confidentiality and data protection.

Requirements for this job:

• Experience of using a variety of IT systems or packages for example, Microsoft Office, databases etc.
• Dealing with inbound and outbound telephone calls from service users and internal staff
• Dealing with customer queries, taking payments and processing invoice payments.
• Numeracy skills to carry out and validate statistical calculations and produce accurate figures.
• Literacy skills to be able to complete relevant documents including writing letters.
• Basic knowledge of relevant legislation on how the Council charges people who receive care and support services (The Care Act 2014).
• Enhanced DBS check.