Complaints Officer

Essex County Counci; Chelmsford; Hybrid; GBP 25,000 - 31,000

Job description

Complaints Officer

Fixed Term, Full Time

£25,785 to £30,335 per annum

Location: Chelmsford

Working Style: Anywhere worker

Please note this vacancy is available as a fixed term contract or secondment opportunity for up to 12 months.

The Opportunity

A 12-month fixed term contract opportunity has arisen to join our Compliance and Complaints Team, responsible for handling Statutory, Corporate and Ombudsman complaints. This is an exciting opportunity for someone to be part of a busy and high achieving team, full of variety and challenges.

As a Complaints Officer, you will be responsible for managing a caseload of complex complaints from residents and service users in Essex, supporting directorates with good complaint handling and providing consistent responses within statutory complaints timescales. Excellent inter-personal, communication and organisational skills are required to liaise with managers and complainants to ensure responses meet the required standards and the procedure is appropriately followed within designated timescales. We regularly work from different offices throughout the council to collaborate with other services and raise awareness about complaints as well as working from our own office base circa 2 days a week.

You will need a customer centric approach, actively communicating with customers by telephone and writing formal complaint responses on behalf of the council.

We are passionate about supporting service areas to use learning from customer feedback and complaints to identify actions which make a difference to Essex Residents.

What’s in it for you?

• Healthy work life balance; flexible and hybrid working options.
• Wide range of learning and development opportunities.
• IT equipment and home-working equipment supplied.
• Competitive annual leave + bank holidays + choice to buy extra.
• Generous Local Government Salary related pension scheme.
• Access to our health and wellbeing support platform with Vita Health Group.
• Access to hundreds of discounts and benefits through Essex Rewards.
• Up to 4 days per annum volunteering leave.

What will you be doing?

• Day to day you will undertake a broad range of activities to ensure ECC remains compliant in relation to complaint management and delivering a high standard of responses to escalated executive enquiries, corporate and statutory complaints.
• Work with colleagues across ECC to ensure that complaints are responded to within the relevant timescales and the complaints policy is adhered to.
• Take ownership and responsibility for complaint case management, including undertaking research and identifying learning opportunities, making recommendations to the organisation.
• Prepare and quality assure complaint responses for Managers, Senior Leaders and Chief Executive to sign off. You will therefore need to establish effective working relationships quickly with colleagues across directorates.
• Telephone customers to discuss and understand their complaint and identify appropriate outcomes to be considered.
• Take part in complaint awareness raising collaboration sessions and training at offices around the council.

The Experience You Will Bring

Essential:

• Experience of working within a customer resolution environment, particularly working with sensitive information with the ability to be tactful and diplomatic.
• Excellent communication skills both oral and written communications to understand and resolve complaints demonstrating empathy and an understanding of the customer.
• Good organisational skills and an ability to work to tight deadlines, prioritise own work, use own initiative and be self-motivating.
• Previous experience of dealing with people who are dissatisfied or unhappy.

Desirable:

• A good knowledge and experience of complaint handling in a local government/health setting, particularly within the Corporate/Ombudsman remit and/or statutory complaints.
• Experience of writing complaint responses to customers.
• Experience of calls to dissatisfied customers.
• Knowledge and experience of identifying outcomes and remedies to resolve complaints.
• Excellent attention to detail, meticulous at record keeping ensuring we are compliant with statutory duties.
• Excellent collaboration skills to build relationships across the council departments.
• An awareness of the importance of client confidentiality and data protection.

To apply for the post please ensure that you evidence how you meet the essential and desirable criteria in your personal statement section of the application.

To read more about our business area, please visit: Climate, Environment and Customer Services

Interview Details

Once the advert has closed and the applications have been reviewed and shortlisted, successful candidates will be contacted to complete a timed written assessment prior to attending a face-to-face interview. This will be emailed to you, and you will be required to complete and return the assessment by a set time. Face to face interviews will take place in Chelmsford on Wednesday 9th April 2025.

Why Essex?

As one of the largest and most dynamic UK local authorities, Essex offers a stimulating public service environment. Covering over 1,420 square miles and serving 1.8 million residents, we’re committed to transformational change and delivering better quality at lower cost. Recognised in the top three of the latest IMPOWER index for productivity, we ensure everyone matters in Everyone's Essex. With flexible working options and a focus on innovation, whether you are looking to develop your career or contribute to the local community, Essex is the ideal place for you.

Essex County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We’re committed to interview all disabled applicants who choose to apply under our Job Interview Scheme if they meet the minimum requirements of the job. Please speak to our Recruiters if you require any reasonable adjustments during the process.

We’re also committed to interview all veterans and care leavers, who meet the minimum requirements of the role for which they are applying.

At Essex County Council, we value integrity and ethical behaviour. As part of our team, we kindly ask that you embrace our code of conduct and the Nolan principles, not only during the recruitment process but also throughout your time with us. Your commitment to these standards helps us maintain a positive and respectful workplace for everyone.

As part of employment with Essex County Council (ECC) should your role require a DBS check you will be required to register with the DBS update service. The DBS update service ensures all registered DBS certificates are kept up to date and allows authorised parties to view the status of your certificate. This is an annual subscription, and you will be responsible for ensuring this is maintained. For further information on the DBS update service please go to https://www.gov.uk/dbs-update-service

Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

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If you have queries on this role or require anything further, please email [e-mail]

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