Benefits and Housing Needs Officer
Hackney
Job Role
To formally respond to all stage 1 assigned casework / follow-ups, Members Enquiries, MP enquiries, Mayor & Cabinet Enquiries and Freedom of information requests within the standard KPI turnaround time and to occasionally assist the exploratory enquiries of the Business Improvement & Complaints Team (BACT) with stage 2 escalated complaint investigations and to complete Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) investigation outcome action points.
To efficiently track, monitor and prioritise business critical casework responses and FOI's by order of deadline or by instructions from line management or higher.
To implement robust measures of casework management / investigation methods to ensure all lines of enquiries are sufficiently explored, managing expectations and offering the most up to date deliverable solutions to successfully resolve formal disputes and all other forms of casework.
To mitigate financial risks and reputational damage to the service in all casework received, and to determine whether or not that the service is at fault within the disputed matter and if fault is found, then the post holder must weigh up all pragmatic resolution options available to sufficiently resolve formal disputes and all other forms of casework on first response.
To identify and mitigate all risks related to safeguarding, by exhaustively exploring and following through to completion all necessary action points to ensure no member of the public and/or staff colleagues are at risk of danger or harm at any time.
To assist the team colleagues to determine casework ownership within the service or to another directorate within the Council. In addition to working in collaboration with other directorates to successfully deliver robust joint casework responses.
To contribute toward the Complaints team's overall efforts to meet the services strategic and performance objectives and corporate council-wide plans.
To competently update all casework related software business systems / customer record databases with any insightful observations and/or conclusive outcomes to ensure the overall quality of data held is kept to a high standard of integrity at all times.
To contribute toward the Complaints team's overall efforts to meet the services strategic and performance objectives and corporate council-wide plans.
Person Requirement
Must have a strong understanding of the key challenges facing local and national government in the professional field of benefits, Council tax reduction scheme and all statutory obligations applicable under Part 7 (Homelessness) & Part 6 (Allocations) of the Housing Act 1996.
