Complaints & Information Manager

Enfield Council is seeking a highly motivated and experienced Complaints & Information Manager to lead our Complaints & Access to Information Team. The successful candidate will play a crucial role in ensuring the effective service delivery of complaints handling, statutory requests, and information management processes across the Council.

As the Complaints & Information Manager, you will oversee the service delivery for Member Enquiries (MEQs), complaints across multiple departments (Chief Executive, Environment & Communities, and Resources), and corporate services for statutory complaints, Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, Environmental Information Requests (EIRs), Subject Access Requests (SARs), and other information-sharing requests. You will manage a team of 6 professionals, fostering a culture of learning, data-driven improvement, and high-performance standards.
Your responsibilities will include championing data insights, leading the development and embedding of predictive and preventive approaches to complaints management, and ensuring the team delivers excellent customer service. You will also manage relationships with key external bodies, including the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman, Housing Ombudsman, and the Information Commissioner's Office., Data Insight & Improvement: Drive a data-driven and learning improvement culture across the organisation, utilising trend and data analysis to inform decision-making.
- Team Leadership & Development: Lead, motivate, and develop a team of 6 to ensure high-quality data analysis, transparency, and continuous improvement.
- Complaints Management: Ensure effective logging, processing, and compliance with legal timescales for all complaints, statutory requests (FOIs, EIRs, SARs), and Member Enquiries (MEQs).
- Quality Assurance: Quality assure draft responses and make decisions on issuing responses where necessary.
- Performance Monitoring: Monitor and report on performance against targets for the complaints functions and ensure timely actions.
- Cross-Department Collaboration: Work with departments including Customer Services to facilitate organisational learning, sharing insights, and assisting with training.
- Statutory Complaints Oversight: Oversee statutory complaint investigations and review non-statutory final stage complaints, drafting reports, and action plans.
- Legal & Compliance Advisory: Provide technical advice on compliance with the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act, ensuring that frequently asked data sets are proactively published.
- External Liaison: Manage corporate liaison with the Ombudsman and ICO to ensure investigations are carried out in compliance with regulations.

We are looking for a dynamic and experienced leader with

Proven experience in managing complaints, FOI, and data protection functions.
- Excellent leadership skills with the ability to motivate and develop a team.
- Strong understanding of relevant legislation (Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection Act, Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman processes, etc.).
- Experience in data analysis and performance management to drive service improvement.
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate across departments.
- A commitment to transparency, continuous improvement, and high-quality service delivery.

If you are passionate about delivering exceptional public services and have a strong background in complaints and information management, we would love to hear from you., Disability Confident
About Disability Confident
A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to Disability Confident.

We are passionate about our people and how we deliver services to our community in Enfield. That's why we encourage a culture that puts our customers at the heart of everything we do - by empowering our people to work together to find solutions, be open, honest and respectful, take responsibility and listen and learn. If you value these behaviours too, we'd love to hear from you - and of course we are always happy to talk flexible working.

Why it's great to work for Enfield Council:

- An excellent pension through the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).
- Up to 32 days annual leave depending on grade and length of service. You will also get eight public holidays per year and an extra day off at Christmas.
- A blend of remote and office based working for most roles.
- Interest free season ticket loan repayable over three or ten months.
- Career development and learning experiences from a range of training courses and learning methods.
- Employee Assistance Programme to provide advice and counselling services. This is a free and confidential service available to staff and members of their family.
- Health and leisure discounts and tax-free bikes for work.
- 1 month's paid sabbatical for registered Social Workers working in Children's Social Care.