Our Values
It’s great to know that you are interested in working with us at Coventry City Council. As a prospective employee, it is important that everyone who works for us is committed to our One Coventry values and shares our commitment to becoming a more diverse and inclusive organisation.
About the team we are recruiting to
Coventry City Council’s Benefits Service is comprised of diverse, multi-talented teams who all have the same aim, to help the city’s most vulnerable residents.
Our work is varied and covers the assessment and administration of schemes that provide financial help and support for those in need.
Specifically, the teams are responsible for the delivery of:
- Housing Benefit and Discretionary Housing Payments which we administer on behalf of the Department for Works and Pensions. We also recover any overpaid housing benefit
- Council Tax Support which is a local scheme that helps residents with their Council Tax charges
- Free School Meals, by working closely with schools we aim to ensure every child who is entitled has a free school meal
- Community Support Grant Scheme which includes assistance in extreme emergency situations and can provide citizens help to resettle back into the community by providing essential furniture items.
We embrace the ONE COVENTRY approach, working closely with our external partners and other Council teams, such as the Housing and Homeless teams and Children’s teams, ensuring we have a holistic approach to supporting our residents.
What is the job role?
We are looking for a pro-active and forward-thinking individual to join our Technical Team in the Benefits Service. This is a fast-paced customer focussed environment with regularly changing legislation and procedures.
You will be responsible for a wide range of duties including providing technical expertise and guidance and delivering staff training. Training is a key part of the role and experience of designing delivering training courses is essential. Also working through Housing Benefit & Council Tax support Appeal cases, including preparing submissions.
You will form part of our wider management team and will be required to contribute to the development and implementation of policies and new service initiatives, to ensure that service objectives are delivered
If this sounds like the right challenge for you then we would like to hear from you.
This post is exempted under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and as such appointment to this post will be conditional upon the receipt of a satisfactory response to a check of police records via Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).
Who are we looking for?
We are looking for someone with extensive experience of working in a Benefits environment. You will have detailed knowledge of Housing Benefit legislation and excellent communication and interpersonal skills. You will also have detailed knowledge of Housing Benefit legislation, Council Tax Support Schemes, and DWP administered benefits.
You will need to accurately review Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support decisions, from revision stage through to tribunal hearings. You will need to have previous experience of preparing and presenting for formal appeals. And have experience of preparing and delivering training with the service area and working to timescales and working within a team that delivers improvements
Analytical skills are a must to interpret complex information and create legislative and procedural documents, as is the ability to be pro-active and make effective accurate decisions.
When applying for this role you will be asked to write a personal statement, when writing your personal statement please include the following:
- Detail about your extensive experience in working in a benefits environment, please give examples of what you have done and achieved.
- Examples of how you have used your knowledge of the Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support appeals process
- Experience of interpreting legislation, procedures, and case law
- What Benefit IT systems you have used and have working knowledge of e.g., Enterprise and Academy and general computer packages including Excel, Word, PowerPoint etc.
For full details on the application process please read the attached document on our jobs page labelled ‘Coventry City Council Application Process’
Interview date(s):2nd & 3rd November 2022
You will be required to give a presentation which will form part of the Interview. Details will be included when selected for Interview
About Coventry
Coventry has a proud, innovative, and creative spirit that throughout its history has seen communities come together to tackle problems and bring about real social change.
We are cutting-edge, challenging, youthful, vibrant, and diverse.
At Coventry we are committed to excellence in everything we do. With around 4800 staff from a range of different backgrounds, our aim is to recruit and develop talented people who will focus on our customers, take responsibility, work together, and find better ways of doing things.
To deliver the best services to our residents, we need the best people working for us to make a difference to our communities.
If you join us, we will provide a fantastic rewards & benefits package which includes:
- Flexible working arrangements
- Generous annual leave allowance starting at 27 days and rising to 32 days
- Pay progression through multiple increments
- Opportunity for Salary Match
- An outstanding local government pension scheme
- Great opportunities to develop with access to accredited courses.
- Access to an award-winning Occupational Health Service
- Salary Sacrifice Scheme
Coventry City Council
Attached documents
