Job Title:Customer Finance Officer / Service: Prevention & Commissioning
Post Number: PECL4453 / Division: Resources
Grade: 5 / Business Unit/Section: Customer Support
Overall Purpose of Job:
To support in the provision of an effective and efficient Customer Support service in respect of income collection related to People’s Directorate and making payments to external providers and service users.
Main Responsibilities:
1 / Operate procedures and systems for payments, income collection, and related data collation, analysis and reporting to People’s Directorate, partners and organisations in line with council policies and procedures.
2 / Collation, analysis and presentation of data for People’s Directorate managers including income and expenditure profiles relevant to the performance of the service, advising senior manager of areas requiring action, enabling targets to be reviewed and managed.
3 / Make payments to externally contracted organisations, e.g. Care Homes, Supporting People Contractors, Direct Payments, Home Care agencies and personalisation service users; raise recharges to external, partner organisations and service users in accordance with People’s Directorate regulations and council’s policies and procedures. Reconcile service provider accounts, and recovery of any overpayment and payment of any underpayment.
4 / Publicise relevant financial and business support policies and procedures in all areas and promote adherence.
5 / Maintain specialist knowledge in relation to benefits, social services charging and income collection
6 / Maintain electronic systems and the People’s Directorate database and retrieve relevant information.
7 / Provide data for and support the preparation of responses to Freedom of Information requests and complaints
8 / Assist care providers to collect income on behalf of thePeople’s Directorate, liaising with families, carers and providers as required
9 /
Monitoring that service users are paying their assessed charge including, under senior officers guidance, negotiate and agree payment terms whilst ensuring the debtor does not suffer severe financial hardship.
Collect, investigate and validate financial information to undertake financial assessment to prevent fraud
10 / Check correct charges are paid via Councils Financial Management System and balance payment record at the end of the case. Identify any incorrect payments and correct any error
11 / Proactively manage debt collection in line with the council’s debt collection policies. To operate the council’s bad debt risk and reputation issues as part of raising debtor invoices, collecting debts in line with council’s policies and procedures and responding to queries.
12 / Have an awareness of Safeguarding issues so can identify concerns and raise with senior officer.
13 / Maintain relationships with People’s Directorate staff, partner organisations and key stakeholders to deliver an effective service using appropriate communication strategies, behaviours and project management skills.
14 / Participate in internal and external audit reviews providing evidence, information and explanation of processes.
15 / Manage own workload to deliver an effective service to People’s Directorate and provide cover for Customer Finance colleagues in order to maximise operational effectiveness
16 / Maintain Investors in People standards through supervision, Employee Development Reviews, training, mentoring and coaching to promote a listening, learning, supportive culture. .
17 / Identify own training needs and those of supervised staff to maintain team knowledge and develop new skills and capabilities to support development of the Team.
18 / Ensure information and records held are maintained to a high standard of accuracy and appropriateness, identifying and reporting on data quality issues and taking appropriate action, to meet audit and financial procedure requirements.
19 / Ensure compliance with the council’s policies and procedures and support People’s Directorate performance management systems
Knowledge, Skill and Experience:
  • Experience of dealing with service users, representatives and families in a sensitive and empathetic manner.
  • Ability to deal with challenging behaviour through good negotiating and mediation skills.
  • Able to prepare confidential notes, minutes, reports and statistical information.
  • Good knowledge and experience of financial policies, procedures and audit processes.
  • Identify financial hardship cases and refer to senior officer. Experience of conflict resolution and be able to use negotiating and influencing skills for a positive outcome to all parties.
  • Skilled in the use of information systems, ability to use and navigate these systems to produce reports, interpret data, review and manipulate to produce the required outputs.
  • Knowledge of team and personal performance management techniques, establishing and maintaining quality performance monitoring systems.
  • Good knowledge of Freedom of Information and Data Protection regulations, Caldicott guidelines and Income and Payment regulations.
  • Ability to supervise staff
  • Ability to use various methods to ensure effective communication with other People’s Directorate and Council staff, partner organisations, service users, carers and representatives and other stakeholders.
  • Ability to reflect organisational visions and be able to share and communicate outcomes and values.
  • Demonstrates continuous development and learning to enhance and maintain technical competence and keep up to date with legislative and procedural changes
  • Ability to develop and maintain successful relationships with others.
  • Able to address concerns and respond effectively to comments from internal and external customers including customers and their representatives.
  • Good literacy and numeracy skills
  • Work is meticulous and accurate

Creativity and Innovation:
  • Innovative and original thinking to promote the culture of the organisation in terms of the presentation of management information and service outcomes.
  • Able to solve problems to achieve a positive outcomes in consultation with senior manager
  • Devising processes with support from senior manager to prevent fraud and loss of income to the service.
  • Participate in service reviews and financial best value models using current service user data to produce and present the model and cost benefit analysis to staff, managers and partners in a clear concise format.
  • Use highly developed technical skills and innovative presentation methodologies, develop reports that are appropriate to the knowledge level of the intended recipients.
  • Creative use of limited resources and expertise to deliver agreed outcomes

Decision Making:
  • Make decisions in relation to own workload priorities and those of supervised staff within realistic time-scales.
  • Make decisions in relation to planning and managing projects, setting out objectives and timescales, reviewing progress against agreed targets and amending where appropriate.
  • Advise senior managers of income and payment issues to ensure compliance with the council’s policies and procedures within People’s Directorate in order not to adversely affect the council’s reputation.
  • When monitoring outcomes determine if apparent variances from targets should be considered significant and require remedial action and report to manager for example bad debt issues, recovery of funds and detection of financial abuse.
  • Advise and make recommendations to senior manager on data quality and performance

Contacts and Relationships:
Daily Contact
  • Service users, carers, and representatives to discuss non-payment of charges and outstanding debts and negotiating method of repayment. Requires empathy and can be challenging.
  • Contact with People’s Directorate staff to advise on income collection and payment issues.
  • Contact with operational staff in internal and external organisations and service providers to discuss recharges, NHS funded nursing, continuing care funding, payment terms or issues relating to service provider payments.
Weekly or monthly Contact
  • Routine contact with other council services in relation to securing debts and making payment to internal and external care providers.
  • Contact with People’s Directorate Managers in relation to budget and activity monitoring
Occasional Contact
  • Regional and National meetings, networks and groups.
  • Service Managers in Adult Social Services.
  • People’s Directorate Senior Management Team

Responsibility for Resources: (to include approximate value, sole or shared responsibility and for what percentage of their working hours away from their designated base)
  • Has shared responsibility for laptop (approx £500) to enable work to be undertaken away from the normal place of work.
  • Handling and processing cheques and cash on a daily basis, issuing of receipts and completing income returns in line with council’s financial policies and procedures Value of cheques varies some are tens of thousands pounds (typically from property sales, frequency varies but may be several times per month).
  • Has shared responsibility as a key holder for the cash box kept in the section.

WORK ENVIRONMENT
Work Demands:
  • Continuously working to pre-determined timescales for payment runs,with tight deadlines to ensure payments meet timescales required in commercial contracts to avoid penalty charges or the council being in default of its obligations.
  • Fixed deadlines in relation to collecting external debts and taking legal action to secure debts or recover via county court or from service user estates
  • Assist with the council’s financial risk by ensuring debts are pursued without delay
  • Re-prioritisation of work due to changes in business needs and policy.
  • Prioritisation of work for self and delegation of tasks to junior staff to meet unexpected changes in circumstances.

Physical Demands:
  • No specific physical demands

Working Conditions:
  • Normal office working conditions
  • Home visits to service users, carers or representatives may involve exposure to unpleasant environments (e.g. cigarette smoke, pets and hair, poor hygiene levels).
  • Visits to health and council offices
  • The post will involve flexible working, hours and place of work to include hot-desking and home working with requirements to visit and work within remote locations with teams, services and partners.

Work Context:
  • Required to discuss contentious issues e.g. non-payment of fees and debts with challenging families and service users, occasionally exposing staff to the threat of verbal and physical abuse.


Position in Organisation:
Indicate how many staff the post is directly accountable for:

Does the postholder manage the posts No

OR
Does the postholder supervise the posts Yes
Are posts in more than one location? No
Is the supervision / management shared with another post in the structure? No
Please indicate which post(s) ______

Note:

Post holders will be expected to be flexible in undertaking the duties and responsibilities attached to their post and may be asked to perform other duties, which reasonably correspond to the general character of the post and are commensurate with its level of responsibility. This job description is provided for guidance only and does not form part of the contract of employment.

Date of Job Description…………………………….

Date copy sent to Post holder…………………………….

Corporate Services Cabinet Member 12 November 2003 Page 1 of 6