Council Complaints FOI Resolution Officer

Neway is looking for a Resolution and Response Team Officer to join our client based with Havering Council., The Resolution and Response Officer is responsible for improving the effectiveness and quality of customer responses and are accountable for providing high quality and efficient customer responses, that reduce the risk of escalation to further stages understanding when to escalate issues to alternative teams. They will manage a wide range of cases and/or requests, effectively researching and overseeing the successful response to corporate and statutory complaints, Ombudsman enquiries, Member enquiries, Freedom of Information, Data Protection Act & Environmental Regulations and information sharing requests. They will work with key stakeholders to ensure accurate and professional responses are provided, assist in the smooth resolution of cases and be responsible for ensuring engagement is consistent throughout the customer's complaint or request journey. They will document lessons learnt through complaints and make sure these are promoted across the team. This is not an exhaustive list of all tasks that may fall to the postholder and employees will be expected to carry out such other reasonable duties which may be required from time to time.,

• To be responsible for dealing effectively with corporate and statutory complaints, Members and Ombudsman enquiries and support the provision of high quality and timely reports for senior officers and Councillors.
• Sensitively handle multi-channel contact from complainants and identify the most appropriate way to resolve enquiries. This will involve challenging telephone conversations and the skills to robustly set out the Council's position and remain calm under pressure.
• Handling of requests made under the Freedom of Information Act, Environmental Information Regulations, Re-Use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015, Data Protection Act 2018 & General Data Protection Regulation from receipt of request through to disclosure or refusal of the information, ensuring correct legislation is applied to each request.
• Develop a wide knowledge of services provided by the Council to be able to determine which service area(s) hold the information needed to respond to complaints and enquiries.
• Work with the wider team to build and maintain appropriate response templates and guidance notes for common scenarios, to support managers across the organisation.
• Providing the right advice and guidance to queries from the public, colleagues, and Members in relation to complaints and to carry out initial assessments of whether information requested is already available or likely to be held by the Council.
• To have a structured, objective, and transparent approach to how you make decisions, being able to assess situations and understand risk.
• Responsible for protecting and managing information securely, and reporting breaches or suspected information security breaches, in line with Council policies.
• To provide data and reports to support the overall analysis of the performance of the department, documenting lessons learnt and outcomes to ensure constant learning across the team.
• Develop a working knowledge of the General Data Protection Regulation, Data Protection Act, Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information Regulations through self-study and course attendance so that advice can be provided to staff and requesters concerning the application of legislation. Ensure that knowledge and understanding of the subject area remains up-to-date.
• To recommend appropriate levels of compensation and how best to provide redress following a legitimate grievance arising from a complaint.
• Identify and report on recommended service improvements arising from complaints outcomes, as well as good practice identified through compliments.
• Create and maintain accurate complaint and enquiry records in accordance with statutory requirements.
• Participate in the development and implementation of quality assurance and improvements of processes to ensure best practice in complaints & information management.
• Prioritise workload by tracking and monitoring requests ensuring the council's obligations are met and an audit trail is present.
• Correspond with both the requester and internal contacts throughout the lifecycle of requests to ensure targets are met within legislative timescales and a good standard of customer service is maintained.