Enquiries Officer

Job summary

Opportunity to use your proven experience handling high volumes of housing enquiries and effectively responding to stakeholders to help improve residents’ lives and landlords’ services.

The Housing Ombudsman Service provides independent, impartial and fair dispute resolution for nearly 5 million households in England. Through resolving disputes effectively and promoting positive change across the social housing sector, we improve residents’ lives and landlords’ services.

As an Enquiries Officer, you’ll be responsible for handling enquiries across various channels, including phone, email, webform and webchat from residents, member landlords, elected representatives and other stakeholders. You’ll be focused on resolving enquiries at the earliest opportunity through the provision of clear guidance, effective management of customer expectations and signposting where appropriate.

Additionally, you’ll be responsible for the identification and handling of enquiries where it’s appropriate to intervene within the powers of the Scheme to ensure residents have a fair and compliant access to their landlord’s complaints process.

Job description

Responsibilities and Outcomes
• To work as part of a team to deliver a high quality, responsive
Enquiries Service which:
o resolves enquiries at the earliest opportunity within set
timescales and quality standards
o identifies customer needs, offering information, advice and
signposting where appropriate

o ensures customers have a fair and compliant experience of
member landlord’s internal complaints process, taking appropriate
intervention and engagement where required
o identifies enquiries at the earliest opportunity that are suitable to
be referred to the Scheme and effectively handing these over to
the Casework Assessment and Support Team.
• To receive and manage high volumes of incoming enquiries from
customers via various channels including, phone, email, webform and
web chat, having a positive and flexible approach to ensure continuous
service delivery
• To make outbound contact with customers to support the earliest and
highest quality resolution to enquiries
• To be responsible for delivering an excellent customer experience,
role modelling our values and behaviours
• To be responsible for updating and maintaining the Housing
Ombudsman Service’s Case Management systems with up to date and
accurate information.
• To significantly contribute to the development of the Enquiries team to
ensure that the quality of service is continually optimised.
• Work independently and schedule own work to meet business needs
• Ensure compliance with GDPR and equalities legislation when
managing Enquiries.
• To carry out any other duties which fall within the scope and purpose of
this role

Person specification

Qualifications / CPD
• GCSE in Maths and English (or equivalent) plus
Demonstrable CPD
Experience
Essential
• Experience of working within a customer services / customer
focused environment*
• Experience of working in a busy environment, handling high
volumes of enquiries and effectively responding to
stakeholders*
• Experience of delivering against set targets and KPIs, working
with high volumes of information at pace and with accuracy*
Desirable
• Experience of a similar role within in Social Housing, an
Ombudsman or a regulator
• Experience in providing an Enquiries service to customers
Knowledge and Skills
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Knowledge and experience of Housing complaints*
• Proven ability to organise own workload and prioritise tasks

Benefits

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

Key requirements, which you should evidence within your supporting statement, include:

• Experience of working within a customer services / customer focused environment;
• Experience of working in a busy environment, handling high volumes of enquiries and effectively responding to stakeholders;
• Experience of delivering against set targets and KPIs, working with high volumes of information at pace and with accuracy; and
• Knowledge and experience of housing complaints.

It’s an exciting time to join us and to contribute your skills to the evolution of this ambitious, influential and growing organisation.

For further details, please download the Candidate Information Pack.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Jonathan McIntyre - CJA Recruitment
• Email : cja@cjagroup.com

Recruitment team

• Email : cja@cjagroup.com

Attachments

Enquiries-Officer-2026-Candidate-Information-Pack Opens in new window (pdf, 626kB)