Vacancies

Citizens Advice Rotherham

Advice Service Manager

Job Title: Advice Service Manager
Responsible to: Chief Executive
Hours 37.5 hours per week, permanent contract
Location: RAIN Building, Eastwood Lane, Rotherham
Salary: £22,500 to £27,500 (depending on experience)

4% pension contribution
Annual Leave 30 days p/a plus bank holidays

Context of role:
Reporting to the Chief Executive, the Advice Service Manager will lead and provide
regular ASS support to the Generalist Advice team. The position will also be
responsible for developing and coordinating the delivery of our non specialist face to
face advice services, taking into consideration our strategic plan, the advice
standards set by Citizens Advice and ensure the delivery of face our to face advice
services are in keeping with our organisational values and behaviors.

Job Description:
Overview
Reporting to the Chief Executive, the Advice Service Manager will lead and provide regular ASS support
to the Generalist Advice team. The position will also be responsible for developing and coordinating the
delivery of our non specialist face to face advice services, taking into consideration our strategic plan,
the advice standards set by Citizens Advice, and deliver face to face advice services in keeping with our
organisational values and behaviors.

Service delivery (65%)
1. Leading by example, with passion and enthusiasm, creating an environment where staff and
volunteers feel valued and supported, you will set high standards and develop a quality, client
focused face to face advice service that meets the needs of the local community that is
delivered by competent and motivated advisers.

2. Work with the Training Supervisor to maintain and manage the day to day scheduling of the face
to face advice sessions ensuring adequate staffing and resources are available.

3. As an experienced Advice Session Supervisor you will lead the ASS team to ensure that 80% of
cases externally audited receive a point total of 2 or more in our QAA.

4. Ensure remedial and developmental issues are identified and work with the Partnership &
Development manager to find solutions and develop individuals to improve the quality of
advice, and ensure clients do not suffer detriment due to poor or inadequate advice.

5. Closely monitor the quality of advice given to clients through daily case checking and adviser
feedback ensuring all ASS’ focus on ‘coaching’ rather than ‘ informing’ advisers.

6. Strive to ensure as a service we achieve exemplary standards of service delivery, ensuring a
strong focus on ‘putting the client first’ and being the last stop for clients.

7. Ensure that appropriate systems are developed and maintained for case recording, statistics,
follow up work and quality control.

8. Keep technical knowledge up to date and provide technical support to advisers
Management (10%)

9. Attend regular meetings of the Service Manager Team and contribute to the joined up delivery
of advice across all teams.

10. Participate in service initiatives as appropriate and contribute to any agreed working parties.

11. Support the strategic development of the service to ensure its management and services to
clients reflect and support the Citizens Advice service’s equality and diversity strategy.

12. Monitor performance targets for RMBC and other contract work and ensure we meet targets.
Staff & Volunteer management (15%)

13. Support the CARD behavioral values of being: Innovative, Generous and Responsible and help
create a positive working environment in which equality and diversity are well-managed, dignity
at work is upheld and staff and volunteers feel comfortable and are supported to do their best.

14. Working together with the Partnership & Development Manager, ensure that volunteer
recruitment and training is in line with face to face advice service delivery needs.

15. Ensure the effective performance management and development of staff and volunteers,
through regular supervision sessions, the appraisal process, volunteer mentoring and learning
and development.

16. Work with the Training Supervisor to plan and allocate work, monitor achievement of deadlines
and support staff and volunteers as appropriate.

17. Support the SMT staff recruitment in line with best practice as and when necessary.

18. Encourage good teamwork and open and transparent lines of communication between all
members of staff and volunteers.

19. Manage any projects as delegated by the CEO.

Administration (5%)

20. Ensure accurate case recording and that records of client outcomes are maintained, ensuring
funder reporting is delivered on time.

21. In partnership with the Resource Manager, monitor an effective health and safety policy with
regard to staff, equipment and premises, within statutory requirements.

22. Investigate and be the initial responder to formal complaints concerning the general advice
service and maintain and respond to complaints procedures in accordance with CARD
guidelines.

Learning and development (2%)
23. Identify and implement own learning and development needs.

24. Identify the learning and development needs of staff and volunteers through support and
supervision.

Research and campaigns (2%)
25. Working with the Research & Campaigns officer, support the development of research and
campaigns and instigate systems and procedures within your team to ensure engagement with
current campaigns.

Other duties and responsibilities (1%)
26. Promote the aims, policies, and membership requirements of the service.

27. Carry out any other tasks that may be within the scope of the post to ensure the effective
delivery and development of the face to face service.

28. Follow health and safety guidelines and be responsible for own safety and that of colleagues.

Person Specification:
1. 2 years experience of volunteer and paid staff management.
2. At least 2 years of recent experience working as an Advice Session Supervisor in a local Citizens
Advice.
3. Experience of monitoring advice quality and proven track record of improving the quality of
advice in a local advice service.
4. A good, up to date understanding of equality and diversity and its application to the provision of
advice, and the supervision and development of staff.
5. Proven ability to give and receive feedback objectively and sensitively and a willingness to
challenge constructively.
6. Ability to communicate effectively verbally and in writing.
7. Proven ability to monitor and maintain service delivery against agreed targets.
8. Excellent attention to detail and the ability to produce clear, concise statistical and written
reports.
9. Proven ability to develop individuals or groups by providing support, guidance, tutoring and / or
training.
10. Ability to prioritise own work and the work of others, meet deadlines and manage workload in a
busy environment.
11. Ability to use IT systems and packages, and electronic resources in the provision of advice and
the preparation of reports and submissions.
12. Ability to commit to, and work within, the aims, principles and policies of the Citizens Advice
service.

 Closing date: 9am Monday 2nd March 2020
Interview date: 9th March 2020 (please reserve this date in your diary)
Please contact nick.bussey@citizensadvicerotherham.org.uk for further information or an
application pack
Every local Citizens Advice is a registered charity. Different application procedures are
adopted by individual local Citizens Advice. Contact the relevant one as outlined in
the information about this role. You should not send an application form to national
Citizens Advice.

Every local Citizens Advice is a registered charity. Different application procedures are adopted by individual local Citizens Advice.

You should not send your application form to national Citizens Advice.

Working with Citizens Advice Rotherham:

Rotherham Borough has dealt with some challenging times over the past 10 years, but Rotherham
Metropolitan Borough Council (RMBC) has turned a lot of the negatives into positives and as a
consequence of some great leadership there is a real drive for change. The Rotherham Plan is in
place and there is now huge investments being made by the council in the town centre and outlying
areas. We are seeing more new businesses moving into the area, creating new jobs and training
opportunities for local people. A good example of this is the opening of the new Gulliver’s World, a
new theme park being built on regenerated land that was formerly a factory site. The cost of
housing is low, compared to national averages, making Rotherham and affordable place to live and
work.
Founded in 1969 Citizens Advice Rotherham is very much at the heart of this community,
supporting local people to access free, independent, confidential and impartial advice and working
in partnership with statutory and voluntary sector agencies to make a difference across the
borough. We have a strong relationship with RMBC, from whom we receive £212,000 per year core
funding to provide a drop-in and telephone advice, five days per week between 9 and 5pm.
Over the last three years we have been on a mission to improve our advice service offer in order to
help more people, focusing much of our service development on hard to reach groups and
communities. In 2015/16 we supported about 4500 unique clients, this year we are hoping to
support over 10,000. This uplift has been achieved from the hard work and dedication of our paid
staff and volunteer team, who work together to deliver a great service. We have also spent time
reviewing the client journey, analysing how clients come into contact with us, this has resulted in
changes in our face to face advice model, allowing us to cut down waiting times and increase
appointments. This has been coupled with an investment in our telephone advice team and we
have joined the Single Queue pilot run by the national Adviceline team resulting in a lift of calls
answered from 50 per month to 300. we have set an ambitious target of answering 600 calls per
month by March 2021.
We recognise the importance of our people and invest in their welfare and happiness. As a service
we have adopted Generous, Innovative and Responsible as our values and our leadership works
hard to demonstrate those values every day. Over the last twelve months we have run numerous
events eg: we took all our people for a fun awayday to Chatsworth House in the summer, we had a
bring your dog to work week and we celebrated our success by having a week of lunches, where
every day of that week we provided all our people with a free lunch which we ate together, this made

sure part time staff are included. Citizens Advice Rotherham is a great place to work and have
fun while we work. Our volunteers and staff support one another, we have a common mission and
we work together to deliver an amazing service to our local community.