Debt and Welfare Benefits Officer

Helping residents overcome financial challenges and access the support they need is at the heart of this role. As a Debt and Welfare Benefits Officer, you'll join our Revenues & Benefits Service and play a vital role in supporting some of the most vulnerable people across West Northamptonshire. Through expert welfare benefits advice and debt support, you'll help residents maximise their income, sustain their tenancies and avoid homelessness.

This is a varied and rewarding position where you'll work directly with residents in a range of settings, including Council offices, welcoming community spaces and people's homes. You'll be part of a dedicated team that makes a tangible difference every day, supporting customers through difficult circumstances while helping them navigate complex benefits and debt issues.

This role offers the opportunity to develop specialist expertise while delivering meaningful outcomes for individuals, families and communities.

What will you be doing?

You'll manage a caseload of residents experiencing financial hardship, providing tailored debt advice and welfare benefits support to help maximise income and improve financial resilience. This will involve conducting detailed income and expenditure assessments, completing benefit applications, identifying entitlement to welfare support, negotiating with creditors and establishing realistic payment arrangements where appropriate.

Working closely with Housing Services, Adult Social Care, Customer Services, Council Tax, Benefits, Public Health, Debt Recovery teams, charities and external organisations, you'll act as a key point of contact for customers requiring specialist support. You'll develop solutions that help sustain tenancies, prevent homelessness and improve customer outcomes, while maintaining a strong understanding of changing welfare benefits legislation, debt advice regulations and consumer rights.

You'll also support residents through more complex welfare benefits cases, including mandatory reconsiderations, appeals and tribunal submissions where required. Maintaining accurate records, contributing to service improvements and analysing customer feedback will form an important part of the role, ensuring services continue to evolve and meet the needs of our communities.

You're a compassionate, resilient and customer-focused professional who wants to make a genuine difference to people's lives. You have experience providing welfare benefits advice, debt advice or financial inclusion support and are comfortable interpreting complex legislation and applying it in practical situations. Knowledge of Universal Credit, welfare benefits and debt management would be particularly valuable.

You bring excellent communication, negotiation and advocacy skills, alongside strong numerical ability and the confidence to prepare financial statements, budgets and repayment plans. You'll be comfortable working independently, managing a varied caseload and engaging with vulnerable customers in challenging circumstances while maintaining empathy, professionalism and objectivity.

As the role involves supporting residents across West Northamptonshire, you'll need the ability to travel to a variety of locations including Council offices, community venues and customers' homes, enabling you to provide face-to-face support where it is needed most.

Most importantly, you'll be motivated by helping people improve their financial wellbeing and access the support available to them. You'll share our THRIVE values and our commitment to delivering high-quality, person-centred services that help residents and communities across West Northamptonshire thrive.

At West Northants Council, it's about our people. People who thrive with ambition, bubble with new ideas, demand better ways of working, caring about every detail, and who never shy away from a challenge. Our culture is a gateway for new experiences. A place to forge new opportunities. To empower you in your career and unite you with like-minded people.

Our vision is 'to make West Northants a great place to live, work, visit and thrive'. We truly stand by this and work hard every day to make this a reality. Our corporate values, THRIVE, stand for: Trust, High Performance, Respect, Innovate and Empower, they underpin everything we do and how we deliver services. Hear from our Chief Executive, Martin Henry, about building a career at WNC.

We are committed to ensuring diversity, equality, equity, and inclusion is woven into the fabric of WNC and everything we do, to enable all colleagues to develop and maximize their full potential. We are a disability confident employer, a member of the Armed Forces Covenant, and a Care Leaver Covenant partner

The following film was created by us to communicate our intentions - watch WNC colleagues explain what DEI means to us.