Pensions Officer

The Pensions Service is looking for a highly motivated individual to join our Administration team as a Pensions Officer. You will be performance-focused and driven to provide excellent customer service. You must demonstrate a flexible approach to delivering all aspects of pension administration.

We are a very friendly team and there is plenty of opportunity for development within the Pensions Service.

If you have any queries please contact martyn.priest@westnorthants.gov.uk.

Our benefits: We offer a wide range of benefits to our employees, these include:

1. Generous annual leave entitlement starting at 28 days annual leave per year, 29 days for senior managers (pro rata, depending on how many hours per week you work), plus bank holidays. An additional 5 days, linked to continuous service, and ability to purchase up to 6 weeks additional leave per year.
2. Cycle to Work scheme.
3. Local Government Pension Scheme plus immediate life cover (3 times your annual salary from day one) and ill-health protection.
4. Employee discounts with local and national retailers, days out, finance, health and beauty, travel and eating out plus lots more.
5. Car Lease scheme.
6. Payment of professional subscription/membership - If your job description requires that you are registered with or are a member of a professional body, WNC will pay for your professional subscription or membership fees.
7. Employee Assistance Programme - We have an employee support programme run by Health Assured, an independent, external organisation. Health Assured is available for you and your immediate family members, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and includes telephone counselling, legal advice, bereavement support and medical information.
8. Ongoing training and development opportunities.
9. A variety of flexible working options to support your work/life balance, including full or part-time, term time, 9-day fortnight, etc. (subject to business needs).
10. Our West Ways of Working – We want our workforce to thrive, and we equip our employees with the right technology to support hybrid and collaborative working, on or off site, depending on the role.
11. Making a difference - If you want to use your skills and experience with an organisation that is genuinely invested in making a difference, are committed to improving people's lives, and whose success has a direct impact on the wellbeing of your family, friends and people in your local area, then West Northamptonshire Council is the place for you.

What will you be doing? The Pensions Officer role sits within the Operations Team and is responsible for pension administration tasks including processing benefit calculations, data input and validation, responding to queries from members, employers, pensioners and dependents, peer checking colleagues’ casework, updating/processing member records with the relevant information. This fast-paced customer-facing role is critical to ensure casework is either dealt with immediately at the point of contact or is efficiently allocated to the appropriate casework team.

About you: You’ll need previous experience of working within the LGPS and ideally experience in a similar role. Your excellent communication skills and confidence with analysing pension issues and offering sound, reliable and professional information will enable you to explain clearly complex pension issues to non-specialists.

You will be able to pay high attention to detail to ensure all tasks are processed efficiently and accurately in line with the LGPS regulations using a variety of MS Office and IT resources.

Previous experience using Altair and/or ERP is advantageous.

We will provide full and comprehensive training to give you the skills and confidence you need to complete the role.

Please see the person specification for a full list of essential and desirable criteria.

About us: At West Northants Council, it’s about our people. People who thrive with ambition, bubble with new ideas, demand better ways of working, care about every detail, and who never shy away from a challenge. Our culture is a gateway for new experiences. A place to forge new opportunities. To empower you in your career and unite you with like-minded people.

Our vision is ‘to make West Northants a great place to live, work, visit and thrive’. We truly stand by this and work hard every day to make this a reality. Our corporate values, THRIVE, stand for: Trust, High Performance, Respect, Innovate and Empower; they underpin everything we do and how we deliver services.

We are committed to ensuring diversity, equality, equity, and inclusion is woven into the fabric of WNC and everything we do, to enable all colleagues to develop and maximize their full potential. We are a disability confident employer, a member of the Armed Forces Covenant, and a Care Leaver Covenant partner.

If you need additional support or reasonable adjustments during the application process, including needing the job description in another format or language, please email careers@westnorthants.gov.uk for support.

West Northants Council, where careers thrive.