Location: Blended between office and home (England and Wales). Time in office negotiable
This role can be considered a secondment, if the successful candidate meets the eligibility criteria
Citizens Advice offers confidential advice online, over the phone, and in person, for free. Through our national network of charities, we give people the knowledge and the confidence they need to find their way forward whoever they are, and whatever their problem.
Do you want to work for an organisation that makes a difference, every single day, to people from all walks of life? The people that turn to Citizens Advice need help overcoming an obstacle in their lives from debt to evictions to trouble at work and you can be key to them getting the support they need in the quickest, easiest, and most effective way.
Expert Advice
The Expert Advice team is at the heart of Citizens Advice, providing subject matter expertise combined with strategic and operational context to give the organisation confidence in the advice we give to people.
This role works within the Help to Claim programme, a funded project that advises clients with transitioning to or newly claiming Universal Credit. The Help to Claim Expert Advice team supports this programme by providing advice support to Help to Claim advisers and the public. This involves working on adviser resources and learning, individual query support on our consultancy platform and moderation of a Workplace group, public advice on our website, and providing specialist knowledge on Universal Credit and the legacy benefits where needed within National Citizens Advice.
This is an exciting opportunity to become a member of the Expert Advice team; to help to shape the support that is given to advisers and the public within Help to Claim and work with colleagues in a variety of teams across the organisation to ensure that our Help to Claim advice is accurate and helpful.
Help to Claim
The Help to Claim service is a funded project to help support people claim Universal Credit: from eligibility checks and benefit calculations, to supporting them with an application, all the way up to their first correct payment. Our advisers therefore provide advice on most areas of Universal Credit (we do not advise on the Work Capability Assessment or support on appeal casework), and a significant amount of legacy benefits (for example, when legacy benefit entitlement would end).
This role is funded by the Help to Claim programme to support managed migration advice as it increases across England and Wales.
The Role
As the successful candidate, you should have significant experience within the Help to Claim programme and a high degree of understanding of the advice given within it, particularly on Universal Credit eligibility. You will be comfortable working with technical legal provisions and using them to solve real-life queries, and utilising your communication skills to support the creation of resources and training for advisers.
Our largest area of advice is currently managed migration, and we expect that the successful candidate will be working on managed migration advice for a significant amount of their work.
Aside from this, our frequent areas of Universal Credit advice include:
* Right to reside and the habitual residence test
* Mixed age couples
* Income (including the MIF)
* Capital
* Severe disability premium transitional element
* Students
* Housing costs element
* Benefits administration
* Administration of LCWRA element (excluding eligibility for LCW/LCWRA under the WCA)
* Ending of legacy benefits
* Conditionality and work related requirements
If you would like to apply please demonstrate the following criteria in your cv and cover letter:
* Significant professional advice experience in Universal Credit and legacy benefits, experience of working on the Help to Claim programme and the ability to apply the law and theory to solve real-life problems in a legal or advice setting;
* Experience interpreting legislation, giving credible, appropriate and high quality legal guidance and advice and communicating complex technical decisions and implications to technical and non-technical audiences via different channels.
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) is of strategic importance within the organisation and recognised as integral to all we do as a service.
Central to pursuing our EDI mission is building diverse and inclusive teams in which everyone has a sense of belonging. We believe inclusion is a social justice issue - a principle that underpins our all EDI work. To that end, we particularly welcome applications from people we would like to see better represented in our organisation and sector - people of colour, LGBTQ+ people and disabled people. We follow the social model of disability. We will offer an interview to disabled candidates who indicate they wish their application to be considered under our Disability Confident Interview Commitment where they meet our selection criteria in their application. Some of our roles attract a high volume of applications and in some circumstances where it is not practicable or appropriate, we may limit the number of interviews offered to disabled and non-disabled candidates. We will provide reasonable adjustments as needed.
We’re a flexible employer, so this role may suit anyone who’d prefer a flexible arrangement to help their work/life balance, many of our colleagues spend most of their time working remotely. Whilst we prefer a blended approach between a local office, if one is near you, and home we’re open to being flexible on location, occasionally a role may require you to be based in a certain location if that's the case it will be detailed in the advert or job description. This can be discussed in more detail during your interview.
The National Citizens Advice operates from offices in England and Wales, with 4 regional offices based in Cardiff, London, Birmingham and Leeds, therefore all successful applicants must be based within England or Wales.
Our commitment to colleague wellbeing is reflected in us being awarded Gold in the Health & Wellbeing category, as well as Overall Winners, at the Employee Experience Awards 2022.
Please be aware that Citizens Advice is not a sponsoring organisation. Therefore the successful applicant must already possess the right to work in the UK or be able to secure the right to work in the UK independently.
Citizens Advice seeks to redeploy internal staff who are at risk or under notice of redundancy and will prioritise them in the recruitment process where necessary. If you have been confirmed as at risk or under notice of redundancy please ensure you indicate this in the at-risk box in your application.
In the event of a high number of applications, we reserve the right to close the application early.
This vacancy closes at 23.59 on the closing date.
For more information about the organisation, our values and benefits please see the following link - Information, values and benefits
Need help with your application, see our useful how to guides on the following page - Guidance notes for applicants