Money Advice Unit Service Manager

Job Title: Money Advice Unit Service Manager
Starting Salary: £59,537 progressing to £66,642
Hours: 37 hours per week
Location: Farnham House, Stevenage and working from home hybrid working
Contract Type: Permanent
Directorate : Adult Care Services

About the team

The Money Advice Unit (MAU) forms part of the Community and People Wellbeing Team in Adult Care Services. That Team works on early intervention and prevention initiatives to keep people safe and well, minimise risks and harm and encourage independence, resilience, self-sufficiency, and wellbeing. The team also leads Hertfordshire County Council's Cost of Living response. Following re-organisation, the MAU is now an integral part of that Team.

The Money Advice Unit's role includes:

• Promoting benefit take-up across Hertfordshire using a variety of means.
• Working with partners in the Community and People Wellbeing Team and the VCFSE sector to deliver a comprehensive advice service for local residents.
• Providing specific long-term benefit campaigns aimed at providing detailed advice and advocacy for particular individuals and groups such as carers, people affected by cancer, people who use adult care and mental health services, people in crisis etc
• Taking an active role in measures to address financial and health inequalities, recognising the key preventative role that benefits advice can play in people's lives.
• Organising staff training, as well as publicity, support, information and guidance to assist both front-line workers and the public to have access to high-quality resources where the MAU is unable to help directly.
• Manage the team responsible for appointee and deputyship action within ACS.
• Ensuring that key developments in benefits and related matters are shared across ACS, the County Council as a whole, the NHS and the VCFSE sector
• To be responsible for external liaison on benefit matters with the DWP, local councils and other statutory bodies.

About the role

• Manage the Money Advice Unit's team of 4 team managers, plus advisers, interviewers, and assistants as well as the Client Finance Team.
• Ensure the quality and consistency of benefit advice given to the 6,000 people a year who the MAU directly advices and assists.
• Manage the MAU and CFT budgets to ensure full value is obtained for what the team is funded to achieve. This includes seeking new sources of financial support. and exploring new methods of delivery to improve efficiency and the already-impressive outcomes that the Unit achieves.
  
  

If you are an innovative and driven individual who enjoys working in partnership and has experience in providing and managing a high-quality high-performing advice service, as well as driving development initiatives, then this will be an exciting opportunity for you.

About you

Essential:

• Skills relevant to leading and monitoring advice services and service development in a relevant statutory or voluntary sector setting.
• Experience of working to develop innovative projects and methods of working to support people facing multiple disadvantage or who have complex support needs.
• Knowledge of the UK social security system, especially at a time of rapid change, and the ability to help MAU staff to apply that knowledge accurately and creatively.
• Experience working strategically with multiple partners and stakeholders to formulate and deliver against shared objectives, especially around preventative services .
• Experience in developing and delivering an advice strategy, including evidence of using multiple sources of information to analyse and respond to need.
• Experience of engaging with people who use services to identify and drive gaps in and improvements for service provision.
• Ability to interpret financial data and experience of managing budgets.
• Post holder must be able to interrogate data and report on data monthly and as when required.
• Project management qualification, skills and/or exeprience
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, as the main representative of the MAU

Desirable:

• Knowledge of Adult Care Services practices, policies and procedures.
• Having areas of expertise within benefits or advice delivery, to act as a source of direct support for team managers and advisers where necessary
• The ability to retain a calm and confident approach when issues become controversial, supporting all to avoid division and to keep focused on the work at hand.
• An ability to work on multiple and varied projects at any one time and an ability to prioritise effectively to ensure that neither urgent issues nor longer-term sustainable solutions are forgotten.
• Able to work proactively alone (when working from home / office) and with the team.

We welcome applications from candidates who currently reside in the UK with established proof of right to work documentation. We are not able to offer sponsorship at this time for this role.

This job role is within the Corporate Services, level CORP14 job profile. Please locate this via:

Job profiles - Corporate services

To hear more about this opportunity please contact Kristy.thakur@hertfordshire.gov.uk for an informal discussion about the role.

Interview Date: 2 May 2025

Benefits of working for us

How to apply

As part of your application, please upload your most recent CV. Ensure your CV is up to date with your employment history (including any employment gaps), and including any training/qualifications. We encourage you to include examples of where you have demonstrated the requirements/criteria in the advert / job profile to allow the panel to fully recognise your skills and abilities. You will have the opportunity to include a short covering paragraph within your application to give us a little more information about your skills, knowledge, and experiences.

Disability Confident
We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and guarantee an interview to anyone disclosing a disability whose application meets the minimum criteria for the post.

English Fluency
The ability to converse at ease with members of the public and provide advice in accurate spoken English is essential for the post (for those whose language is a signed language the provision of a sign language interpreter who speaks English to the necessary standard of fluency will be required). Further information about the legal requirement can be found here.