Financial Assessment & Welfare Benefits Officer

Financial Assessment & Welfare Benefits Officer

A great opportunity to join the Health and Adult Services (HAS) finance service and help us continue to develop the effectiveness of our service. The HAS Finance service undertakes its work to a high standard and is looking for an individual to help us continue our good work unsupervised and under pressure.

The majority of your time in the role will be spent visiting service users in their homes with the following purpose.

• Enabling service users to maximise their income by providing accurate benefits advice and ensuring that all benefits are being claimed for people’s individual circumstances
• Assisting service users, where required, in completing their benefit forms, either over the telephone or in person
• Completing timely and accurate financial assessments for service users to establish their liability to their care fees.
• Ensuring correct Council expenditure and income, as well as ensuring the wellbeing of the service user is not compromised by their care needs and the associated costs.
• Working closely with our Welfare Rights Unit, Brokerage and Quality Teams, as well as social work and debt recovery staff.
• Being responsible for identifying any safeguarding concerns and escalating them as appropriate.

Requirements:

• Understanding of the Care Act, specifics on charging for services, welfare benefits system and financial assessments.
• Experience with complex issues and vulnerable adults, providing high quality customer care and communication.
• Experience dealing with a diverse group of customers, including pensioners and people with disabilities.
• Experience working in constructive partnerships with other agencies such as voluntary organisations and Department of Work and Pensions.
• Experience working in a local authority financial environment and ideally in a benefit advice setting.
• Experience in a job requiring accurate figure work.

Diversity Statement: Royal Borough of Greenwich values the diversity of its community and aims to have a workforce that reflects this. We therefore encourage applications from all sections of the community.