Senior Financial Support Assistant

Salary: £25,742 to £26,444 with progression to £27,979 per annum

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Closing Date: 28 January 2024

The Role

We are looking for a compassionate and resourceful colleague who will be responsible for assessing and administering applications for discretionary hardship funding.  This will involve having an open-minded, problem-solving approach you your work coupled with an empathetic nature.

Your role would involve reviewing eligibility for funding including emergency loans, answering queries about discretionary Financial Support, providing basic financial advice and guidance to students, preparing hardship outcome letters, and administering payments.  You will also be involved in data preparation for reports and returns as well as some event organisation for presentational events. 

The work predominantly involves telephone and email contact with students, but also some face-to-face interviews. Therefore, we are looking for someone with excellent customer service skills.  To succeed in this role, you should bring with you an understanding of the finance issues faced by our students and be passionate about wanting to support.  

The Student Health & Wellbeing Service provides information, advice and guidance on a wide range of support issues.  The Student Health & Wellbeing Service has been designed to enable students to maximise their potential whilst at University. The service is free, confidential and available to all students. You will work within the Student Financial Support Team under the direction of the Manager. The team administers a diverse range of funding schemes with overall spend of approximately £13-14m per annum.  You will operate within a team of 16 (14xFTE and 2xP/T) alongside two counterparts.

Due to the student facing nature of the team and service it is necessary for team members to spend most of their time on campus, though there will be the opportunity to work remotely. 

If this sounds like you please reach out to Emma Ingrouille (Manager, Student Financial Support Team) at Emma.Ingrouille@ncl.ac.uk.

Key Accountabilities

•    Answer queries from students and applicants about eligibility for discretionary Financial Support.   To assist students with the process of applying for these funds.   To provide basic financial advice and guidance to students
•    Assess applications for discretionary hardship funds, determining eligibility and adhering to both external and internal policies
•    Contribute to the assessment of applications for discretionary emergency funding
•    Compose and issue outcome letters and to deal with subsequent enquiries and correspondence
•    Record all relevant information regarding hardship and emergency applications on the appropriate databases and spreadsheets
•    Process application outcomes to allow payments to be made to students
•    Undertake other duties such as preparing data for relevant reports and returns, supporting the Research Scholarship Scheme and   student presentational events
•    Contribute to the development and review of processes and procedures for the continuous improvement or adaptation of systems and resolution of problems associated with any of these processes
•    Contribute to the organisation and delivery of a number of Student Financial Support Team led events as well as other University events such as Open Days 
•    Undertake other duties as deemed appropriate by the Team Manager, Deputy Manager or the Director of Service

Knowledge, Skills and Experience 
•    Previous experience of working in a customer focused role, preferably within a financial setting or student facing environment
•    Demonstrate a high level of numeracy with excellent attention to detail
•    Good written and oral communication skills
•    Evidence of working as part of a team and autonomously with the ability to prioritise own workload
•    Ability to show initiative and to problem solve
•    Excellent organisational skills and able to manage competing demands working to tight timescales

Attributes and Behaviour
•    Demonstrate excellent interpersonal skills to deal sensitively and respectfully with students and other stakeholders
•    Effective at organising busy workloads and managing competing demands
•    Able to use systems and tools to ensure records clear and up to date
•    Shows flexibility in the workplace to allow for changing circumstances
•    Able to consider large amounts of complex information quickly and identifies key issues
•    Demonstrable positive and proactive attitude and a ‘can do’ approach to work
•    Demonstrates commitment to the delivery of excellent services
•    Able to deliver clear verbal and non-verbal messages

Qualifications
•    Educated to NVQ / A level or has relevant work experience

 Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.  As a University of Sanctuary, we aim to provide a welcoming place of safety for all, offering opportunities to people fleeing violence and persecution.

We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society.  We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all of our employees and the communities they represent.  We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams, we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and experiences reflect the diversity of our university and student population.

At Newcastle University we hold a silver Athena Swan award in recognition of our good employment practices for the advancement of gender equality.  We also hold a Race Equality Charter Bronze award in recognition of our work towards tackling race inequality in higher education REC.  We are a Disability Confident employer and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role as part of the offer and interview scheme.

In addition, we are a member of the Euraxess initiative supporting researchers in Europe. 

Requisition ID: 26539