ASC Account Management and Debt Recovery Officer
** WE ARE CURRENTLY UNABLE TO ACCEPT APPLICATIONS VIA NHS. TO CONTINUE WITH YOUR APPLICATION, PLEASE USE THE FOLLOWING LINK TO OUR CAREERS SITE **
Hours per week: 37 hours
Temporary Fixed term: 6 months
Finance Shaping Wiltshire's Future
If you are passionate about finance and helping your community, then this is a fantastic opportunity to join our dedicated Care Contributions Team and make a meaningful impact on the lives of vulnerable adults in Wiltshire.
Main duties of the job
The Care Contributions Team is a dedicated team that sits within the Council's Financial Services Directorate, Finance Operations team reporting to the Chief Accountant. The team is responsible for the billing and collection of Adult Social Care income due to the Council under the Care Act 2014.
As an Account Management and Debt Recovery Officer, you will work closely with colleagues across Directorates, in Adult Social Care, Finance, and Revenues and Benefits to further develop processes that ensure the timely production of statements. You will also be actively managing and recovering Adult Social Care contributions to sustain services for vulnerable adults in Wiltshire. You will handle various tasks, including phone inquiries, setting up Direct Debits, and managing caseloads of individuals which includes liaising with the person, their informal carer, relatives, and others who hold legal responsibility on behalf of someone who lacks mental capacity to manage their finances under the Mental Capacity Act 2005.
We are looking for a candidate skilled in clear verbal and written communication, able to adapt to diverse needs. You need to have strong attention to detail, methodical query resolution, and be able to effectively prioritize tasks. Experience in credit control or debt recovery is beneficial, along with the ability to reconcile financial records and explain findings. Familiarity with the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and/or Care Act 2014 services is desirable.
About us
Why us?
Wiltshire Council is a friendly, welcoming place to work, with a 'One Council' ethos. That's why we focus on getting the things that matter to our people right.
Job responsibilities
Specific duties and responsibilities include:
1. Provide support to both the team leader and other members of the team regarding the scheduling of key events and ensuring the service is adequately staffed to maintain the production of statements, invoices, and reminders.
2. Responsible for supporting the wider team, providing knowledge and guidance on more complex areas of debt recovery, and debt collection whilst monitoring an allocated number of more complex customers who have been financially assessed to contribute toward the cost of their care packages.
3. Ensure that the appropriate amount of debt is being recovered on behalf of the council, supporting and protecting the financial status of the organization.
4. Using detailed knowledge of the benefit system with consideration to a number of financial factors, understand how the contribution is calculated (including Welfare benefits and NHS Funded Nursing Care - FNC and Continuing Healthcare - CHC), work closely with colleagues to maintain information on client benefits, other council debts etc. and provide a sound but responsive financial standing through the maintenance of relationships with the client and or their representative, attorney or Deputy.
5. Assess and review customers' personal and financial circumstances, ensure that the best interests of the client are served in terms of appropriate payment plans that are manageable in line with their financial portfolio and mitigate the need to progress with third-party debt recovery.
6. Record decisions, conversations, and any communication to ensure information held about the customer is up to date and in a format that can be understood by others should debt need to be escalated to Debt Management Panel and to the satisfaction of the Legal Department.
7. Understand and inform ASC Finance teams of changes in customer circumstances in terms of financial capacity including annual income/pension/benefit upratings, rising and falling capital, questioning significant changes in capital as well as change of address, and particularly sale of property/assets, to ensure that the contribution is based on current financial standing and does not exceed the cost of their care and support packages.
8. Ensure that all debts are paid/managed following the cessation of any care package.
9. Negotiate payment terms for unpaid debt with customers/attorneys and work in conjunction with other departments to prepare statements and cases for county court claims where appropriate.
10. Assist with debt management procedures including the resolution of customer queries, working with the appropriate department to resolve queries. Managing competing priorities to ensure a timely and accurate approach on behalf of the council and clients.
11. Selecting and instigating appropriate recovery process, monitoring and updating customers accounts, pursuing payment and making arrangements or implementing appropriate debt recovery option according to customers circumstances within a pre-determined framework. This includes recommending debt write-off for unrecoverable debt according to the Debt Management Policy, Financial Regulations, and debtors individual circumstances.
12. Offer guidance on debt recovery and the appropriate and timely passing of debt to third parties and external agents, (Enforcement Agents, Tracing Agents and guidance on the use of internal databases to gather debtor information).
13. Ensure direct debits are properly claimed and applied, BACS notifications are processed, investigate failed direct debits, unallocated payments, suspense accounts and reconcile payments on a monthly basis. To ensure that accurate payment information is maintained, and any issues are followed up to avoid non-payment of debt.
14. Ensure Wiltshire Council receives interest on late payments from agreed Customer Types, in accordance with the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998.
15. Have oversight of cases as they progress and become more complex, responsible for attending and advising the Debt Panel and provide up-to-date evidence to agree suitable action on larger debts, recommend solutions or actions for the more challenging debts. The information and advice provided will impact the way in which the debt is recovered from the client.
16. Providing guidance and information to a number of partners and third parties, this may include clients, representatives, attorneys, and solicitors. Responding to queries and supporting the council to recover debts.
Person Specification
Qualifications
* Educated to a minimum of NVQ level 4 standard (or equivalent) in a finance or debt recovery field.
* Previous experience of working in credit control, income collection or debt recovery.
* Evidence of ability to gather, interrogate, reconcile and balance financial records and to explain actions and findings.
* Accurate keyboarding skills and experience of working with various financial software packages and systems (Agresso, Sage, Controcc, Paris, Civica and Web Based Direct Debit Systems)
* Excellent ability to communicate, influence and negotiate with external agencies
* A thorough understanding of welfare benefits, how they are claimed and how they are paid
* Have a broad knowledge of Local Government
* Excellent communication skills being able to communicate effectively at all levels, including when others have communication difficulties and explain complex matters using the most appropriate means and format, by telephone, letter or e-mail.
* Sensitive to vulnerable customers' needs and able to prioritize debts but resilient to challenges presented by challenging customers.
* Have a working knowledge of software systems, specifically ContrOCC, SAP, Civica and Northgate
* Adult Social Care Experience
* Working knowledge of the Mental Capacity Act 2005
* Awareness of Adult Safeguarding and indicators of Financial Abuse or Fraud
Experience
* High level of relevant and practical experience acquired on-the-job which demonstrates ability to undertake and develop within the role. An advanced understanding of relevant procedures and working practices.
* Good knowledge of specialist function relevant to service area.
* Excellent ICT skills including use of Microsoft applications and specialist systems.
* Experience in the research, analysis and presentation of information.
* Experience in the use of specialist equipment/systems/techniques relevant to the role.
* Good communication and interpersonal skills, able to explain technical/legal issues in a straightforward manner.
* Ability to draft up technical reports and draw conclusions from the data to inform decision making.
* Good knowledge of other areas of the authority relevant to the service.
* Good organisational skills and the ability to prioritise workloads and achieve deadlines.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
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