Subsidy Monitoring Officer in England

Are you passionate about making a difference in public services? Sheffield City Council is seeking a part-time dedicated Subsidy Monitoring Officer to join our Revenues and Benefits Policy and Support Team. This is an exciting opportunity to play a vital role in ensuring the Council claims the maximum amount of subsidy in respect of Housing Benefit awards made by the Council, supporting financial stability, ensuring effective budget monitoring and reconciliation and contributing to the effective delivery of services for our community.

We are looking to appoint a part-time member of staff on a permanent basis. Working alongside the current Subsidy Officer, the successful applicant will be responsible for administering the Council's Housing Benefit Subsidy claim and related audits. The successful applicant will be required to operate in a busy environment and have a detailed knowledge of the rules governing the processing of awards of Housing Benefit. The ability to follow processes and ensure due diligence is followed is essential to this role.

The successful candidate will be required to:

• Complete and verify the Council's subsidy claims, ensuring accuracy and maximising subsidy prior to submission for approval.
• Provide efficient benefit subsidy and financial reconciliation reporting.
• Monitor, extract, and reconcile statistical data for senior managers and external bodies.
• Liaise with internal and external stakeholders on subsidy and benefit cases.
• Support the completion of complex claims and undertake reviews for audit purposes.
• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of Housing Benefit.
• Ensure all duties are undertaken in line with Council policies, including safeguarding, equality, diversity, and inclusion.

The applicants must also have strong IT skills and be able to confidently use Microsoft's suite of Office applications (Word; Excel; Outlook etc). At present, we are adopting hybrid working with a combination of time working from home and some in the office (Howden House). Appropriate IT equipment and training will be provided to the successful applicant.

Initially the position is for 15 hours per week providing cover for the current postholder's flexible retirement, but this will eventually move to 37 hours per week, however, the date of this move is currently unknown. We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare and safety of children and vulnerable adults and expect all staff to share this commitment. All successful candidates will therefore be required to complete a basic Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) Check.

If you are enthusiastic and have the necessary skills, knowledge, and experience to join our team we would like to hear from you. We are investing in our workforce and are promoting opportunities to our under-represented groups. We value equality, diversity and inclusion and are focused on increasing the diversity of our workforce, particularly the number of Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic, Disabled and LGBTQ+ people, so that our teams reflect the communities in the city we serve. We are also supporting staff with unpaid caring responsibilities to work flexibly.