Job Description

Casework Team Leader

£45,557 - £51,770 per annum

Canary Wharf, London

A description of the work of the Pensions Ombudsman

When someone has tried to resolve a problem with their pension and isn’t satisfied with the outcome, they can ask us to help.

We are an independent organisation set up by law to investigate complaints about pension administration. We also consider complaints about the actions and decisions of the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) and about some decisions made by the Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS).

We look at the facts, without taking sides. And we have legal powers to make decisions that are final, binding and enforceable in court. Our service is free.

We are funded by grant-in-aid paid by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The grant-in-aid is largely recovered from the general levy on pension schemes administered by the Pensions Regulator.

Around 80 staff work here in one of two workstreams: the “early resolution service” which deals with complaints that come to us early in the complaint journey (frequently before the problem has been formally considered by the pension scheme or provider) and the “adjudication service” which deals with complaints that could not be resolved informally or during any internal process. On average,we deal with around 12,000 enquiries, 4,000 earlyresolutions and 1,600 adjudicationseach year. A significant proportionof cases that go through the adjudication process are resolved without the need for Ombudsman involvement.

Purpose of the role

The Casework Team Leaderis responsible for managing a team working on adjudications, and supporting Adjudicators of various grades, skills and experience to ensure the whole team is performing to the best of their ability. The post holder will line manage and mentor Adjudicators, provide advisory support, quality assurance and take responsibility for successful delivery within the team.

Key duties

Management

  • Direct line management responsibility for approximately 10 Adjudicators
  • Provide technical advice and support to the team
  • Motivate the team and communicate positively
  • Conduct regular team meetings and carry out planning and co-ordination activities
  • Turnover and succession planning
  • Monitor staff workload and team capacity
  • Strategically think about learning and development for staff
  • Monitor and manage individual performance consistently and fairly

Casework Delivery

  • Develop and agree a Quality Assurance process for the team with the Casework Manager
  • Review and develop appropriate escalation processes for cases and issues within the team
  • Participate in casework processes such as allocation of cases and developing specialisation within the team

Other

  • Support the Casework Manager and other managers in policy processes, reports and proposals
  • Ensure compliance with organisational goals and values within team
  • Provide performance reports to the Casework Managerin relation to team performance, targets and deadlines.
  • Work collaboratively with other Team Leaders to generate co-ordinated reports about team performance, targets, and deadlines across the adjudication teams
  • Any otherduties that may reasonably be required

Person Specification

Experience

  • Knowledge of pensions legislation
  • Knowledge of dispute resolution or complaints handling
  • Good understanding of our casework topics and complexity of cases
  • Some experience of leading and managing case work or complaint handling teams made up of people with different skills and abilities
  • Experience of producing high quality reports
  • Experience of working with stakeholders and customers to better understand their needs to help improve our service.

Skills

  • Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to build relationships at all levels
  • Excellent communication skills, written and verbal
  • Well-developed written business English
  • Strong analytical, judgment and critical reasoning skills
  • Ability to make reasoned, sustainable decisions. This includes the ability to draft and edit documents to a high standard, adapting the tone and presentation of documents in a manner that is well suited to its purpose and audience
  • High level of IT literacy, including knowledge and experience of developing and using case management systems and interrogating management information
  • High level of skill in dealing with performance and quality management
  • Able to deliver difficult decisions
  • Awareness of own development needs.

Main terms and conditions

Location

The successful candidate will be based at The Pensions Ombudsman, 10 South Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London, E14 4PU.

Pension

The post holders are entitled to join the Civil Service Pension Scheme. Further details are available from

Leave

Annual leave allowance is 25 days per annum plus bank holidays and 2½ days’ privilege holiday.

Hours

Contracted hours will be 41 per week including meal breaks.

Probation

The successful candidate will work a probationary period of 6 months. The appointment will be confirmed when this period has been completed successfully.

Other benefits include

  • Interest free loans for the purchase of season tickets.
  • Flexi time.
  • Buying and selling annual leave.
  • Other flexible working arrangements, subject to satisfactory performance.
  • Free eye tests.
  • Employee assistance programme.

HMG Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)

Everyone who works at The Pensions Ombudsman is expected to successfully complete the BPSS.

There are four elements of verification and we must be satisfied that evidence has been made available to enable verification of each element. These are:

  • confirmation of nationality and immigration status;
  • confirmation of identity;
  • verification of previous three-year employment history;
  • disclosure of unspent criminal convictions.

The check will be carried out when a contract offer has been made. The offer will be subject to successful completion of the BPSS. The contract will not commence until BPSS has been completed successfully.

Applicants should be aware that supplying false information or failing to disclose relevant information could be grounds for refusal/dismissal and could amount to a criminal offence.

Data protection

Checks require processing of personal data about individuals. The provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 will apply at all times.

Information about criminal records (self-disclosures, or other vetting disclosures) will only be held by the Business Manager and/or Human Resources Manager. Disclosure information will only be used for the specific purpose for which it was requested. For successful candidates, the information will be kept securely and will not normally be kept with standard personnel records if such records can be accessed by other staff. Disclosed information will be kept for a further six months beyond the duration of employment. For unsuccessful candidates such information will be kept for six months in line with all other recruitment paperwork. Once the retention period has elapsed, disclosed information will be destroyed by secure means.

We may check information provided by you, or information about you provided by a third party. We will not disclose information about you to anyone outside our organisation unless the law permits us to.

Information provided by you in this application, and the supporting documentation, will be used by the panel to consider your suitability for the post applied for. If you are successful, this information will become part of your employment record. If you are unsuccessful, some data may be used for monitoring purposes and will be destroyed after twelve months.