Complaints and Access to Records Officer

Job title:

Complaints and Access to Records Officer

Company

Leicester City Council

Job description

Full time/ 37 Hours Per week / PermanentAre you a team player who would like to join our service as a Complaints and Access to Records Officer? As a Complaints and Access to Records Officer you will join a small but dedicated and hard-working team who provide a valuable service to individuals who have used our service both currently and in the past.This is an exciting time to join Leicester City Council and to be part of our ever-improving service ensuring children are at the heart of our work. Recently rated as GOOD by Ofsted, we are committed to working in partnership to ensure that Government guidelines on complaints and Subject Access Requests are met.The Complaints and Access to Records Team is part of the Children’s Safeguarding and Quality Assurance Service and we are a small friendly team made up of a Service Manager, Senior Officers, Complaints and Access to Records Officers and an Admin and Business Support Officer. We advise, guide and support individuals who want to make a complaint or have access to their social care records as well as provide social care records to the police for use within criminal cases. The work of the team and the outcome of complaints often highlights the need to improve services provided by the Social Care and Education division.After an initial office-based induction you’ll work flexibly between home and at Halford House. This position is a full-time, permanent role. Core working hours will be 8:30am-5:00pm Monday to Thursday and 8:30am to 4:30pm on a Friday. This job also has the added benefit of Flexible working hours.What you’ll be doingOn a daily basis you’ll liaise with individuals who have been under the care of children’s services, or their parents, advocates or solicitors, either in relation to a complaint about the service they have received or asking for access to their records (SAR – Subject Access Requests). Holding a SAR caseload, you’ll discuss and agree with requesters what information they want to receive and how they would like to receive it. You’ll be responsible for redacting third party information from social care files before releasing them and keeping accurate records of all work carried out.With attention to detail, you’ll accurately record complaints, explain the complaints procedure and process the complaint overseeing all progress made to ensure it is managed through the legal framework.In addition to all of the above you’ll also hold a caseload of police and CPS requests and will liaise with officers to agree timescales for information on social care records for use in criminal prosecutions to be released.What you’ll needWith knowledge and understanding of the children’s statutory complaints process alongside knowledge of Data Protection, information governance and the SAR process you’ll have experience of working on sensitive issues in a complex organisation.As an excellent communicator, you’ll deal effectively with individuals, their families and external organisations such as police and other agencies. With the ability to follow procedures in accordance to legislation and statutory processes, you’ll apply this in making decisions and have the confidence to explain any necessary actions. As a significant amount of information is distressing in nature, you’ll show empathy, understanding and resilience when dealing with the needs of individuals and have the ability to develop coping mechanisms to carry out this work. In addition, you must be able to deal with people over the telephone who may be irate and/or aggressive.For this role only right to work pre-employment checks are applicable.What we can offer youAs well as the satisfaction of helping to improve thousands of lives across Leicester, you can look forward to a work environment that encourages a healthy work/life balance. You’ll enjoy generous annual leave, membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme and the option of flexible working. We’ll also give you the chance to develop your skills and expertise with a variety of training and development opportunities. In addition, you can choose from a number of flexible benefits, including discounts on city buses and trains. For an illustrative value of your benefits package, take a look at our benefits calculator.Join usWe’re committed to recruiting a diverse and highly-talented workforce as we continue to build a council that is fitting and representative of our great city. That’s why we’ve designed our recruitment process to put you at your ease, make you feel welcome and bring the best out of you. We’ll do all we can to make our recruitment process as fair as possible. To help you with your application, take a look at the ‘our approach to recruitment’ page.For an informal discussion about this post, please contact: Therese Ball or one of our team members on 0116 454 2430Interviews will take place on Tuesday 9th July 2024.

Expected salary

£26421 – 28770 per year

Location

Leicester

Job date

Sat, 08 Jun 2024 07:47:12 GMT

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