Trainee Enforcement Agent

Dukes is an award-winning Enforcement company centrally located in Stone, a canal town between Stoke-on-Trent and Stafford. Our clients are largely local authorities for whom we collect unpaid council tax debt, business rates and more. We’re a family run company with of roughly 80 employees located across England and Wales.

Due to the growth of the business, we are looking for driven, proactive and hardworking Trainee Enforcement Agents to join our team in Preston.

**Salary**:£24,000 per annum, once certificated the salary will increase to £28,500 per annum, plus on average £28,000 commission per annum. N.B there is no cap to your bonus potential with our highest performer receiving roughly £85,000 commission per annum)

**Location**:Preston

**Contract**:Permanent

**Working Hours**:Flexible working arrangements between the hours of 6:00am and 9:00pm Monday to Saturday, working at least one late night per week.

Working a total of 40 hours per week.

**The role**:Trainee Enforcement Agents will undergo full training to learn the necessary skills to become Certificated Enforcement Agents. Working on behalf of Local Authorities and commercial clients, our Certificated Enforcement Agents are responsible for executing Court orders and enforcing warrants to obtain payments on unpaid debts.

The role is challenging, yet rewarding as you’ll be dealing with a variety of customers with different financial situations each day and tailoring solutions to help them reach the best and fairest resolution for their circumstances.

**Core responsibilities include**:

- Undertaking field based/Classroom training to learn the necessary skills to become a Certificated Enforcement Agent.
- Travelling to various addresses, observing and job shadowing certificated Enforcement Agents.
- Completion of training course resulting in Level 2 qualification in Taking Control of Goods.
- Completion of the Level 2 Taking Control of Goods examination.
- Attending the County Court, either in person or virtually to demonstrate that you are a fit and proper person to be certificated.

Once certificated, responsibilities will include:

- Enforcing warrants and liability orders on behalf of clients to obtain payments on unpaid debts.
- Identifying the financial circumstances of a debtor by capturing key income details. This may require assisting debtors to complete income and expenditure forms and questionnaires.
- Requesting payment in full (PIF) or agreeing an affordable repayment arrangement to help charge payers resolve their debt.
- Identifying and assessing vulnerability and signposting to support services where required.
- Liaising with office-based colleagues regarding active cases.
- Overseeing payments received for cases allocated to you: handling cash payments, managing receipts and other required documentation.
- Compiling short reports about your visit, along with completing any necessary paperwork
- Taking control of goods - where required.
- Removing goods - where necessary.
- Gaining intelligence on an area demographic or charge payer’s situation that we can report back to the Client to assist them with their own reporting and casework.
- Striving for continuous improvement and reporting to management about ways we can improve our offering or our operational efficiencies.

Whilst every day will be different, the core expectations of an Enforcement Agent remain the same:

- You will be required to maintain strict client confidentiality and comply with Data Protection legislation and, where appropriate, the Freedom of Information Act.
- You must always act within the law, including all relevant legislation and observe all Health & Safety requirements in carrying out enforcement.
- At all times, you must abide by the Level 2 Taking Control of Goods National Standards.

**The Skills / Qualifications you’ll need**:

- No experience is required as all training will be supplied.
- Full clean UK driving license is required (minimum of 2 years).

**Skills / attributes**
- **Strong communicator** - You know how to tailor your communications to different audiences. You are tactful, confident and clear when communicating and you have excellent listening and negotiation skills that enable you to gain respect and manager conflict.
- **Flexible - **you know that every situation will be different and you will act accordingly. You’ll help those struggling to resolve their debts and make smarter choices about their situation so they don’t get into more trouble.
- **Self-motivated and proactive**-You will be able to work independently and organize your own workload following training. You know how to keep yourself going and stay motivated to succeed, even on difficult days. You are proactive and will strive for success in everything you do and you will remain level headed when working under pressure.
- **Approachable and engaging** - The ability to engage with charge payers and be respectful in your conduct to help maximise cont