Internal Only – Administrative Officer – Tuition Fees

Advert

This post is currently open to employees of Cardiff University only.  Please do not apply if you do not have a current contract of employment with the University.

Internal Only – Administrative Officer – Tuition Fees

Central Finance Professional Services FSU (Finance Service Unit) is seeking to recruit a full-time Administrative Officer supervisor to work with the tuition fee income section.  This team is responsible for the raising and payment collection for all tuition fees, supporting students with advice and providing financial support services to senior management and other colleagues. 

The successful candidate will thrive in a team environment and be motivated to deliver high-quality administrative support services, both to the department and other internal and external key stakeholders. They will be a highly motivated team player, capable of working under pressure in a professional manner.  The role requires strong technical, planning and organisational skills, and a proven ability in successful staff supervision and mentoring.  You should have significant experience of working in an office environment, (experience of the Higher Education sector being an advantage, but not essential).  You should possess excellent IT skills (across all MS Office packages) and customer service experience.

The post is full time 35 hours per week and open ended.

Salary: £26,444 – £29,605 per annum (Grade 4)

Cardiff University offers many excellent benefits, including 32 days annual leave (plus bank holidays), pro rata for part time staff, local pension scheme, blended working (meaning you will be able to work from home for some of your time), a cycle to work scheme and other travel initiatives, annual increments up the pay scale, and more. It is an exciting and vibrant place to work, with many different challenges and is a proud Living Wage supporter.

This role is eligible to be offered on a blended working basis, meaning that as well as spending time working on campus you can also choose to spend some time working from another location, e.g., your home. The University is committed to offering this flexibility, wherever the role and business need allows, supporting work-life balance.

As the biggest university in Wales – and a major employer, with more than 7,000 staff – we are an ambitious and innovative university located in a beautiful and thriving capital city. We can offer you the chance to work in a vibrant organisation, with great benefits and opportunities for progression.

Closing date: Tuesday, 23 January 2024

External applications are currently not being considered for this post.  If the decision is made to open the post to external candidates, the strapline at the top will be removed and you will be given ample time to apply – please check back periodically for details.

Cardiff University is committed to supporting and promoting equality and diversity and to creating an inclusive working environment. We believe this can be achieved through attracting, developing, and retaining a diverse range of staff from many different backgrounds.  We therefore welcome applicants from all sections of the community regardless of sex, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, trans identity, relationship status, religion or belief, caring responsibilities, or age.  In supporting our employees to achieve a balance between their work and their personal lives, we will also consider proposals for flexible working or job share arrangements.

Job Description

Key Duties

• Supervise the day-to-day operation of the Administration Assistants – Tuition Fee Income team, including allocating tasks, producing work schedules, monitoring holiday cover arrangements; completing probation, annual appraisal, and staff development requirements; and providing training and wellbeing support to staff members where necessary.
• Support the team to work together to achieve shared objectives.
• Work with others to make recommendations to improve our ways of working.
• Establish productive relationships with key individuals (University colleagues and external contacts) to help improve the level of service the team provides to its customers.
• Perform a variety of administrative duties to support the team and department achieve its goals.
• Gather and analyse data so that informed decisions can be made, establishing basic trends and patterns in the data and providing reports and recommendations for management.
• Instruct and guide colleagues across the University within on any queries relating to Tuition Fee Income as required.

Specific Duties

• Raise invoices for students studying the Doctor of Education, Combined Professional Doctorate of Nursing, the Doctorate of Health Studies and the Doctor of Social Work.
• Responsibility for the production and submission of invoices and account statements to sponsors.
• Manage the temporary enrolment chasing loop (T) during the enrolment process, to include the separate loop for students with payment date extensions and to cover the TF debtor profile.
• Updating the HCARE & Nursing modules with Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) funding information.
• Liaising with the Corporate Finance Officer and Senior Corporate Finance Officer to reconcile the RCUK accounts relating to research students.
• Setting up and monthly maintenance of the PYS (payment splitting profile).
• Responsibility for signing Fees Letters to facilitate sponsorship payments and the completion of funding forms to relevant countries.
• Regularly review SF (Foreign Governments and Companies) & SG (UK Government Offices) sponsor accounts, including sponsorship letters and updating SSP with any sponsor discounts, or notify students if their sponsor has not paid.
• Respond to all allocated queries received via student connect E2S in a timely manner.
• Ensure that all documentation regarding tuition fees is maintained and updated, liaising with Registry and the University Schools as necessary.
• To recalculate tuition fees based on withdrawals and IOS for UG and PGR courses.
• To provide cover to the tuition fees manager in checking refund requests in TEAMS, weekly MI data reporting and US loan administration
• In conjunction with other Tuition fee income team members to review and respond to all requests for an arrangement to pay.

General Duties

• Abide by all University policies and undergo appropriate personal and professional development.
• Perform other duties which are not included above, but which will be consistent with the role.
• Uphold the Professional Services Values & Behaviours or local equivalent.

Person Specification

Your application will be assessed against the following essential and desirable criteria for the role. Please copy and paste this section into a new document and give clear examples of how you can evidence meeting each criteria by writing under each one. You can draw on elements from any aspect of your life (e.g., work, home, education/qualifications, or community life) as long as you focus on their relevance to the role.

Please Save your supporting statement in a separate document and attach it to you application profile, ensuring that you name it with the vacancy reference number e.g. Supporting Stagement for 18004BR.

Please note that these are also the criteria shortlisted applicants will be assessed at during interview.

Essential Criteria

Ability to communicate in writing clearly, concisely, and effectively to provide detailed advice, guidance and support to team members and customers on all areas of commercial and research collections.

Evidence of a good standard of numeracy and IT literacy.

Experience of working in an administrative role or environment.

Understanding of line management responsibilities (such as work allocation, probation, appraisal, holiday requests etc.).

Ability to resolve and manage performance and welfare issues within your team within University procedures and policies, maintaining professional standards.

Ability to communicate information effectively and professionally to a wide range of people.

Ability to use your initiative and creativity to solve problems, respond to queries and make recommendations, identifying and proposing practical solutions.

Ability to work unsupervised to deadlines, planning, setting and monitoring your priorities and those of the team.

Ability to explore customers’ needs and adapt the service your team provides accordingly to ensure a quality service is delivered.

Ability to apply best practice credit control processes.

Desirable Criteria

Previous experience of supervision/line management.

Previous experience of working in Higher or Further education.

Ability to speak/understand Welsh or a willingness to learn.

CICM qualification or a willingness to undertake professional training in this discipline.

Additional Information

We want to employ people with a wide variety of experiences. We welcome applications from all sections of the community regardless of sex, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, trans identity, relationship status, religion or belief, caring responsibilities, or age. We are particularly seeking applications from candidates who come from backgrounds that are underrepresented at the University, including people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities.

We are looking for a team player who will work with colleagues to provide a great service to staff and students. You don’t need to have worked for a university before; this is an opportunity to show your potential and start or continue your career at Cardiff University.

This role may be an opportunity for you to build on your experience from working in a previous administrative role or environment, showing your transferable skills and aptitude to be successful in the role. You should have an interest in managing and developing a team. You should be enthusiastic about developing your knowledge and skills to become a valued member of the team and to provide supervisory support to those under your line management.

HOW WE WILL SUPPORT YOU IN PERFORMING THIS ROLE

We want to support and develop you in the role, using a combination of the following to help you reach your full potential.

Regular one-to-one meetings with your team leader.

An experienced and supportive team around you.

Support to undertake job-relevant training and development, as identified by your Line Manager. This could be informal or could be an apprenticeship leading to a formal qualification, such as Business administration NVQ.

A staff mentoring scheme.

Support to learn Welsh or to update language skills.

Job Category

Accountancy & Finance, Admin / Clerical