Representations Officer

**What's involved with this role**:
**Ref number**: Southwark RQ1392326**

**Must have 6 months (or more) experience in dealing with Formal Representations and/or informal appeals made against the PCN (issued within London). Full understanding of TMA 2004 & RTA 1991 is required.**

As a member of the Parking appeals and representations team, they deliver a timely and effective service for the Parking and Network Management team and the wider council. The post holder will be expected to produce work to a consistently high standard and to use their experience, knowledge and aptitude to weigh up the evidence in each case, whether it is a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN), parking permit or parking control suspension and make balanced judgements.

Parking and traffic enforcement is crucial to delivering three of the council's plans: Climate Change, Air quality and Streets for people.

**Key Responsibilities**:

- Investigate and respond to all parking related correspondence, including formal and informal representations and appeals received as a result of enforcement of PCN issued to motorists. This includes the external Environment and Traffic Adjudicators who sit at London Tribunals and make the final decision on any parking or traffic penalty in an adjudication hearing in which evidence is presented by the officers to trained solicitors or barristers who are the adjudicators.
- Ensure other parking enquiries are dealt with, in line with the statutory process and timescales, internal key performance indicators (KPIs), civil procedural rules (CPR 75) and the council's communication procedures to deliver a high standard of customer services to the residents and visitors of Southwark.
- Attend external Adjudication Hearings and give evidence and prepare proofs of evidence as required preparing and determining a plan for any complex cases highlighted in accordance with the legislation.
- Accelerate and identify any themes and trends arising from representations, complaints and concerns to their line manager reporting and sharing case issues.
- Manage and prioritise their own workload in response to changing demands from management.
- Ensure that daily quality and quantity performance standards are met or exceeded and that correspondence conforms to the relevant quality, policy and legislative standards
- Ensure that enforcement practices and required enforcement infrastructure complies with agreed procedures and standards and to take responsibility for reporting non-compliance issues to the appropriate teams.
- Authorise the cancellation of and initiate refunds as a result of PCNs being cancelled, permit or suspensions ending before their expiry when required in accordance with the parking services policies.

**Qualifications**:

- Education to include Maths and English at GCSE level or equivalent and/or proven experience of parking enforcement and appeals legislation.

**Knowledge**:

- Knowledge of the civil parking and traffic enforcement legislation, parking adjudication processes and guidance.
- Knowledge of the back office process for enforcement of parking and traffic penalties.

**Experience**:

- Proven experience in working in a customer service or administrative environment, having to compose formal correspondence.
- Experience of analysing data to carry out investigations and to inform decisions using computer systems and databases.
- Experience demonstrating a proven ability to work with contractors and officers in a penalty charge notice enforcement environment to deliver excellent customer service.

**Skills & Abilities**:

- Effective interpersonal skills and ability to represent the parking team with officers at all levels.
- Excellent customer service skills and confidence with both written and verbal communication delivering high quality customer outcomes.
- Ability to diffuse difficult situations and resolve conflicts.
- Ability to effectively prioritise and meet deadlines when faced with conflicting priorities with creativity, tenacity and enthusiasm.
- Ability to work independently to meet agreed work plans, deadlines and required performance targets.

**To help speed up the process of uploading your CV to the client we would ask that you send us your CV in Word format (or equivalent) if possible, not as a PDF.**

**If you are successful in securing this role, please note that for the entire duration of this contract, regardless of extension, you will be working at the PAYE rate that has been advertised. For absolute clarity, we only work on a PAYE basis, rather than umbrella pay terms. We do not offer Ltd/umbrella or outside IR35 rates. If you wish to understand PAYE vs Umbrella more, please let us know and we can send you some additional information for clarity.**

ALD **Please note that clients invariably ask us to strip out contact details from CVs before we submit them for consideration. This is always quicker and easier to do if you send your CV to us in Word format, rather than as a PDF ple