Recovery Officer

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an enthusiastic and dedicated individual to join our busy Revenues and Benefits Team as a Recovery Officer at Gloucester City Council. The successful candidate will be a committed team player who can work on their own initiative to complete tasks and achieve targets.

• Decide and implement the most effective options to recover outstanding debts, including referral to enforcement agents, attachment to earnings, deduction from benefits, issuing pre‑commitment and pre‑bankruptcy letters, or County Court action.
• Support vulnerable customers, encourage the take‑up of available benefits and discounts, negotiate debt repayment plans, and apply discretion where necessary.
• Monitor customer accounts to ensure payments are received and take action to progress recovery as appropriate.
• Assist with the preparation of cases for court.
• Deliver excellent customer service when dealing with customers and stakeholders, providing explanations and clarification of decisions and actions taken in relation to legislation, policy and procedures. Signpost residents to additional or alternative support where it is outside the remit of the Revenues and Benefits service area.
• Issue housing benefit over payment invoices, monitor arrangements with debtors and take appropriate action to recover unpaid debts.
• Answer and deal with telephone enquiries from customers.

• Experience with local authority revenues administration and debt collection.
• Experience in council tax and/or business rates.
• Computer literate with a working knowledge of Microsoft Office packages (Word, Excel, Outlook).
• Good communication skills, able to convey information to customers with tact and discretion, including fluent spoken English.
• Organised, methodical, with good attention to detail and strong written skills.
• Experience of coping well under pressure and dealing with difficult situations.
• Team working ability.
• Minimum of 5 GCSEs grade 4/C or above including English and Maths.
• Fluency in spoken English, as required by the Immigration Act 2016 for customer‑facing roles.
• Commitment to confidentiality and GDPR compliance.