Revenues Officer

Description

Hybrid is optional however fully remote is also accepted for these assignments. However, please note that candidates may need to collect IT from a client office base.

Job context

• This is a role that spans both the Revenues service and the Welfare & Benefits service.
• The client Revenues Service has a clear purpose to deliver the billing, collection and recovery of Council Tax and Business Rates due to the local authority to enable it to deliver services to its residents. It is also responsible for collecting local Business Improvement District (BID) levies.
• The Welfare & Benefits service has a clear purpose to deliver and be responsible for administering Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support scheme in accordance with Government legislation, case law and local policy and in doing so, contribute to the provision of financial support for the most vulnerable members of the community.
• Reporting directly to the Revenues and Benefits Senior Control Officer providing day to day management and financial control for the Revenues and Welfare & benefits service areas.
• This team will ensure that all business critical processes are scheduled and performed on the council’s systems. These include but are not restricted to Housing Benefit payment runs, Direct Debit approaches, council tax and business rate daily calculation and bill production, calculation and upload of council tax reduction, processing of ATLAS files, extract and transfer of refunds to customers. System housekeeping including data deletion and financial reconciliation processes.
• Use of business objects (or similar) to produce reports, data intelligence, freedom of information requested data, focused information to assist the service.

Job Purpose

• To be responsible as directed for the effective delivery and control of the batch and individual system processes that form the main bulk processes in the administration of revenues & benefits.

Operational management

• Day to day set up and monitoring of processes / jobs – checking completed and outputs as expected.
• Ensure procedures are followed to ensure business critical events occur at the right time. Due to the nature of this role where bulk processing is a feature robust contingency, disaster recovery and procedures to provide reassurance and resilience will have been set out by the Revenue & Benefits Control Manager and Revenues & Benefits Senior Control Officers.
• Ensure sound and documented processes are followed and maintained to ensure consistency, accuracy and good source data systems are a feature of the service.
• Business Critical functions include but are not limited to annual billing production, direct debit set-up/debits/recalls & reconciliation, benefit payments, subsidy related processes, refunds, testing of releases, template maintenance, daily calculation, CTR posting, bill & letter production. All bulk processes associated with the recovery of council tax, business rates, BIDs and HB overpayments. Management of modules and processes designed to automate record management, Citizens Access automation.

Performance and Resource Management

• Respond to internal and external audit reviews and implement action plans with agreed deadlines.
• Organising individual workload to ensure the most cost-effective & efficient use of time, ensuring due regard to personal safety. Attend staff meetings & events as required.

Partnerships

• Establish and maintain effective working relationships with internal and external partners including other directorates, statutory and voluntary sector partners and Government bodies.
• Developing a productive relationship with software suppliers and internal system teams in the context of logging and resolving individual issues.
• Work with other teams in Customer, Revenue & Benefits to embed a customer focussed culture, ensuring that employees and partners keep the customers’ needs at the forefront of what they do.

Strategic management

• Maintain an overview of all the functions of a Revenues Service & work with colleagues to ensure the efficient & effective collection of all revenue. Support and contribute to the continuous improvement of services within the post holder’s work area with the ability to quickly evolve & adapt to new ways of working in response to changing priorities & needs.
• Peer mentoring & training on all areas of role.

Communications

• Encourage good communication and effective working relationships across services/directorates.
• Recognising the importance of the work undertaken for both revenues & benefits teams articulate issues in a timely and appropriate manner.

Systems and information

• Familiarisation with IT Systems used by Revenues to deliver its services including e-mail, specialist Revenues database software, document imaging software, telephony software, web enabled payment systems, Microsoft Excel and Word and others as utilised.
• Use the current business processes in relation to record keeping, financial monitoring and ICT.
• Ensure adhere to the robust and visible schedule of all bulk processes associated with revenues and welfare & benefits including citizen access, undertake these processes and ensure procedures are embedded to avoid any omissions.

Person Specification: Knowledge and Experience

• Knowledge of legislation and practice for either revenues and benefits administration or both with skills to interpret and apply new legislation to the Council as required.
• Awareness of confidentiality with regard to personal information with particular reference to the Data Protection Act.
• Demonstrable evidence of experience of undertaking a role where the use of technology and software packages was a feature of that role.

Occupational Skills

• Excellent communication skills – written & oral: used to communicate clearly & concisely, recognising & understanding the feelings & concerns of others, including members of the public, colleagues & official bodies.
• IT skills that allow navigation and optimum benefit from technology-based systems to a high standard.
• Ability to schedule workloads to meet deadlines and priorities.
• Ability to use initiative & solve problems using decision making skills.

Behaviours

• Able to work flexibly to meet the demands of the job including limited pre-arranged out of hours working at either evenings or weekends.
• Committed to the council’s corporate vision and objectives.
• Highly motivated and not easily discouraged.
• Personal and professional demeanour and credibility which commands the confidence of staff, external partners and other stakeholders.
• A high degree of probity and integrity.
• A commitment to learning and achievement.

Other Requirements

• An ability to fulfil all spoken aspects of the role with confidence through the medium of English.

Desirable

• Experience of delivering a Technical Support & Controls function, with technical experience in relation to the software utilised by either revenues & benefits or both.
• Experience of undertaking bulk processes for revenues and/or benefits including annual billing / uprating, direct debit and payment management and all batch process set up.
• Able to think and act strategically, be proactive, solve problems and make decisions.
• Ability to meet objectives and targets to deliver continuous improvement.

Other Requirements

• An ability to fulfil all spoken aspects of the role with confidence through the medium of English.