Job Description

Job Category: Officer
:
Discover yourself in Lewisham where what you do makes a difference to our vibrant and culturally diverse communities!
We have a rich history of welcoming people from all over the world and are proud to be recognised as the UK's first Borough of Sanctuary, for our work in championing the rights of refugees and migrants.
Introduction
Do you want to make a positive difference to the lives of children and families in Lewisham? If so, we would like to hear from you. We are currently recruiting Senior Business Support Officers to support the development of Children's Social Care services.
This is x1 Permanent and x1 fixed term (6 months)
What's the role?
We are on an exciting journey of change in Children's Social Care and are making improvements based on the Signs of Safety approach. As part of our improvement journey we have reviewed the organisation of the workforce alongside the business processes and administrative support to ensure this meets with the needs of Children's Social Care. We are now looking for people who are willing to work flexibly and in collaboration with others to fulfil service needs. The main areas of support include:
Customer Contact: dealing professionally and sensitively with enquiries from members of the public and other professionals. Maintaining a high standard of customer care with colleagues and other partner agencies. Receiving & accurately logging data and information on our databases, ensuring that the appropriate action is taken in accordance with given timescales, processes and procedures.
Routine and complex administration: taking notes and minutes at meetings, panels or other events, processing applications, organising staff visits, meetings and case conferences, researching and collating data or information for Freedom of Information requests, partner agencies, other government agencies or for legal purposes and providing project management support.
General Office support: filing, photocopying, scanning, sending & receiving post, undertaking reception duties and supporting business continuity processes.
Finance: ordering goods and services, processing invoices, taking payments from customers, processing cash/cheques, making payments via credit card/BACS and managing prepaid cards, travel requests, train & Oyster card payments, all in line with financial regulations.
ICT: trouble-shooting for Microsoft Office Word, Excel and Outlook & line-of-business systems or specialist applications, managing requests to external contractors and resolving a range of ICT and mobile phone requests, such as setting up user accounts & arranging logons.
Property & equipment: Receiving deliveries, maintaining storage spaces, keeping office supplies and ICT equipment up to date, undertaking health & safety duties
HR: Supporting data collection, recruitment activities, organisation of induction and training
What's in it for you?
Excellent training and development opportunities, plus a range of benefits including:

• Generous holiday allowance
• Local Government Pension schem
• Flexible working and family friendly policies
• Season ticket and bicycle loans
• A range of staff discounts including local subsidised gym memberships
• Supportive staff networks

What we're looking for
We want to recruit permanent business support staff who are keen to help deliver our vision which is underpinned by the following values:
Accountability
Understanding our role and being accountable for our own actions
Child's Story
Putting the child at the centre of plans and actions
Quality Assurance
Providing good quality service and seeking feedback so we can continue to improve on what we do
One Service
Working in collaboration with others to meet our aims
Thinking
Clearly and calmly to reach decisions
Relationships
Building and maintaining excellent relationships within children, families, colleagues, partners and others outside of the division
Purposeful plans
Being smart, innovative and collaborative in our planning
The successful candidate will have an understanding of the services provided by Children's Social Care and be committed to making a positive contribution to the workforce. These positions will involve working in a sensitive and highly confidential environment with some exposure to distressing information about families and young people's circumstances.
This can be a fast paced environment, so we are looking for people who can think clearly and calmly to ensure systems and processes are accurately maintained. You will have the ability to prioritise changing workloads and be proactive in promoting efficient and effective ways of working to meet service demands and statutory guidelines.
In addition, you should be an effective communicator and someone who excels in consistently delivering excellent customer care to service users, internal staff and external partner agencies. You should be confident in using your own initiative and be a flexible and effective team player who can provide on-going support and guidance to Business Support Officers.
Most of the information we capture and process is held within a range of line-of-business systems or specialist applications e.g. LCS, EHM, ContrOCC, Oracle and SharePoint so you will need to be confident in navigating and learning the use of a range of IT applications including core packages such as MS Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Assessments of customer service and administration skills will be a part of the selection process.
You will have proven project and/ or programme management skills and be able to deliver projects to timescale and budget in line with the Workforce Development strategy within Children's Social Care. You will also need to be able to operate within a changing landscape where there can often be uncertainty or ambiguity and a need to adapt approaches within this context.
In return, we'll offer excellent development opportunities, plus a range of benefits that includes a career average pension scheme and the opportunity to make a real difference to our local community.
Location
We are based at Laurence House, Catford SE6. There are 2 local train stations 5-7 minutes' walk from Laurence House, and the train journey from London Bridge is approximately 15 minutes. There are also numerous bus routes that stop outside Laurence House. In addition to the main office, we have two link offices in the Lewisham, New Cross and Catford areas which you may be required to support.
The job is primarily based in Laurence House but we operate a hybrid approach where you will be required to work both in the office and from home on a regular basis.
Special conditions

• The job is subject to an DBS check

The recruitment process is anonymous and we don't accept CV's.
- please read the guidance in this handbook when applying. It is essential that you complete the application fully and that your supporting statement covers how you meet each of the person specification criteria listed.
For an informal discussion about this job, please contact (Kaley Rual - - Business Support Operational Lead)
Please click to view the and Person Specification
Salary
37,509.00 - 38,637.00 per annum (Scale 6)
N.B: All appointments will be offered at the minimum spinal column point (SCP) for the grade of the role. The only exception to this will be when matching current salary (up to the maximum of the scale), which is subject to evidential proof.
Diversity
Lewisham Council is a Disability Confident employer. We welcome and encourage job applications of all abilities. If you require any reasonable adjustments in the application or interview, please contact the lead contact on this advert. We will make reasonable adjustments to make sure our disabled applicants and those with health conditions are supported throughout our recruitment process. We support the access to work scheme, further details are available at
The Council has a dedicated employment support service, , which offers Lewisham residents guidance in relation to applying for jobs. If you want to join Lewisham Works, please email and an advisor will be in touch with you.
The Council reserves the right to close adverts early if there is a large response.
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