Welfare Benefits and Debt Advice Supervisor

**Contract Type**: Permanent

**Salary**: Grade H. SCP 29 £37,336 to SCP 31 £39,186

**Hours**: 36 Hours per Week

**Base Location**: Tameside One, Market Place, Ashton-under-Lyne, OL6 6BH

**Assessment Date**: To be arranged

**The Role**

Tameside Council has an exciting opportunity to join the Welfare Rights & Debt Advice Team and make a meaningful difference to people’s lives, helping us to achieve our ambition of Starting Well, Living Well, and Ageing Well in Tameside.

We are looking for a Welfare Benefits and Debt Advice Supervisor with the knowledge and expertise to manage an experienced and dedicated team of Welfare Rights Officers and Debt Advisers.

**About You**

You will need to have relevant, demonstrable, recent experience in providing welfare benefits advice work at a specialist level including experience of representing clients at social security appeals. An excellent working knowledge of the benefits system, especially in the areas of sickness and disability, is also required along with first class communication skills.

You will be the operational lead for the service, managing a team of welfare benefits and debt advisers, and will need to have experience of providing supervision and support to staff, ideally in an advice setting. You will be responsible for ensuring that high quality advice is being provided through supervision, file review and peer review processes as well as working within a quality mark framework. You will also oversee workflow into the service to ensure that residents are supported with timely, accurate advice and assistance.

You must have an ordered approach to casework with excellent inter-personal skills and the ability to work under pressure. You will need excellent organisational and supervisory skills and be able to demonstrate experience of providing support or advice to the public including vulnerable people. Additional skills in providing debt advice would be welcome but are not essential.

**About Us**

At Tameside, we are committed to ensuring all our Citizens lead long, fulfilling and healthy lives. We are committed to supporting economic growth, providing high quality health and care services, protecting our most vulnerable and creating strong and supportive, self-sufficient communities.

We recognise that our people drive our success and enable the organisation to deliver on its vision, purpose and priorities, and that our people are our most important resource and asset. Our values underpin our practice and behaviours, and are at the heart of everything that we do; and we understand that how we do things is just as important as what we do. We pride ourselves on living by our STRIVE values of Support, Trust, Respect, Integrity, Value Diversity and Engage. Our values underpin our practice and behaviours and are at the heart of everything that we do. How we do things are just as important as what we do.

Our employees’ skills, experience and knowledge are essential to our success along with their happiness, wellbeing, commitment, enthusiasm and motivation to be the best they can be.

For more information or for an informal discussion please contact Janine Yates on 0161 342 3494.

Previous applicants need not apply.

This role is a designated customer facing role under the fluency duty and requires a specified level of spoken English in the person specification.

We are committed to developing a culture which respects individuals, appreciates difference and allows everyone regardless of background to reach their full potential. We are proud to be an accredited disability confident employer. Reasonable Adjustments will be considered in accordance with the Equality Act 2010 in relation to the Job Role Criteria.

**Ref No: DPT378