The role
Southwark Homeownership Services are responsible for calculating, billing and collecting service charges for around 15,000 council homeowners. The Service Charge Construction team ensures that the wide range of council costs are scrutinised to identify those that are chargeable to homeowners, and analyses and collates them so that they can be charged to the right households. The team is also responsible for ensuring that legal consultation requirements are complied with so that charges can be enforced.
The Revenue Service Charge Officer will be part of a small team that analyses and consults on day to day repair costs.
You will scrutinise the council’s accountancy systems to identify repair costs across the borough to ensure that they are coded to the correct blocks and estates, analysing the text to ensure that work is chargeable. This work involves analysis of a very large body of information using excel functionality, individual scrutiny of orders and investigation of detailed circumstances in some cases. You will collate and manipulate data to ensure that charges are correct and comply with our leases and identify and investigate anomalies.
You will be responsible for liaising with the repairs teams and the engineering teams in the Housing and Modernisation Department to ensure that statutory consultation requirements are met to evidence the need for work and the reasonableness of the costs. You will be responsible for calculating individual costs from specifications of work, ensuring that that they are correctly costed, and will deal directly with observations from leaseholders in writing and by telephone.
This is a small team with responsibility for analysis of a wide range of costs. We aspire to improve our construction of charges through better use of technology and better liaison with the service providers who incur costs. You will be keen to contribute towards this through proactively identifying solutions and through effective liaison with colleagues across the council.
About Southwark:
We are the largest local authority social landlord in London, managing 55,000 homes lived in by 40% of Southwark’s residents. We are home to over 18,300 businesses including iconic London venues and social enterprises and we have a young, diverse and growing population.
At Southwark we are committed to making our borough just and fair and are taking positive action to tackle inequalities. Our residents and communities are our greatest asset and the passion we have for Southwark is shared by millions of Londoners who enjoy our outstanding cultural offer, use our hospitals and attend our universities. Our refreshed borough plan and focus on Southwark Stands Together, (which is our work with Southwark’s communities and the council’s staff to tackle racism, injustice and inequality) underpins all that we do.
Additional salary details
About You:
You’ll have knowledge of:
- Accountancy principles
- The range and scope of housing management services
- Some basic knowledge of leases and service charges
You’ll have experience in:
- Applying accountancy principles
- Use of computerised spreadsheets, and other computer software such as Microsoft Office
- Administration work
Skills & abilities:
- To prioritise effectively and meet deadlines, particularly when faced with changing priorities
- Proactive, able to work on own initiative and be self-motivated and committed to providing a service to customers
- High degree of interpersonal skills, with the ability to communicate at different levels both orally and in writing
- Exceptional attention to detail and organisational skills
Benefits and more information:
https://jobs.southwark.gov.uk/why-us/
Recruitment timetable
Advert Closing date: Monday 30th October 2023
Interview date: Wednesday 15th November 2023
Guaranteed Interview Scheme
As part of our commitment to inclusion, we offer guaranteed interviews for specific groups of people. To qualify, you'll need to meet the minimum requirements for the role, and identify with one of the below criteria:
- Members of the Armed Forces and veterans
- Are currently in care, or have previously been in care
- If you consider yourself to be disabled or if you have a long-term health condition
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