Money Advice/Debt Adviser (Trainee Considered)

Citizens Advice Bury & Bolton (CABB) is a leading provider of social welfare law advice and information, supporting thousands of clients every year. We are a busy, client focused and dynamic service with a track record of delivering high quality advice face to face, over the phone and digitally.

Our communities are facing unprecedented challenges with continued rising costs. The rising cost-of-living continue to directly impact individuals and families, with more people than ever in negative budgets, debt and housing crises.

Our Money Advice team provide a professional money advice service, which enables clients to assess their best strategies and options to address debt issues, manage their ongoing income and expenditure and where possible maximise their income.

There’s no ‘average’ day for our team, each client and case is different. You will work as part of a well-established team, providing a reliable and effective money advice service, across face to face and telephone advice channels at Citizens Advice Bury & Bolton.

This is a fantastic opportunity for personal and professional development, where you will be fully trained and supported in this role, both through national ‘classroom’ based training, on the job shadowing and internal training, and other development opportunities, including opportunities to obtain the Certificate in Money Advice Practice (CertMAP); the leading debt advice qualification for debt advisers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. While some knowledge and experience in advice is desirable, it is not essential due to the training provided.

To be successful in this role you will be able to work in a trauma informed manner, with a high level of accuracy and attention to detail, exhibiting excellent listening and questioning skills.

About you:

• Experience in delivering advice (preferably money advice/debt)
• Excellent interpersonal skills to engage with a diverse range of clients,
• Organisational skills with the ability to adapt, prioritise deadlines and competing tasks in a fast-paced environment,
• A genuine passion for continual professional development,
• Be empathetic, compassionate and resilient, understand how to use trauma informed approaches and be adaptable to client needs
• Be resilient and adaptable - this is a high pressured role

Key elements and tasks within this role include:
Provide high quality tailored debt advice through one-off advice and ongoing casework to clients through; 

• Effective interviewing – using sensitive and questioning skills
• Identify client’s money advice and debt needs
• Identify emergency advice issues, advising/supporting on dealing with these emergency issues
• Advise and empower clients through informing of debt solutions and their implications
• Assess if grants/one-off support is available to client and advise on how to apply/support where possible
• Support clients to set sustainable budgets and maximise their income
• Empower clients to set their own priorities
• Identify vulnerable clients who require additional support and act for them where possible
• Work closely with colleagues within the organisation and external partners to provide holistic advice and support to all clients.
• Achieve performance targets required of the adviser post (KPIs) and ensure that all work meets quality standards and the requirements of FCA regulations, MaPS standards and Advice Quality Standards.
• Maintain detailed case records for the purpose of continuity of casework, information retrieval, statistical monitoring and report preparation (using national case management system Casebook).

Key information

• Employer: Citizens Advice Bury & Bolton
• Locations: Hybrid, Bolton, Bury
• Role Type: Permanent
• Working Hours: Full-Time
• Working Hours Per Week: 35

To apply for this role:

A full role description and person specification can be found by clicking on this link
Please submit copy of CV and Cover Letter as set out in job pack.

Please note we will be actively interviewing successful candidates during the application stage and reserve the right to close the vacancy early.

Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging (EDI&B): We believe inclusion is a social justice issue - a principle that underpins our EDI&B work. To that end, we particularly welcome applications from local individuals who are representative of the local communities we serve - this is not just a matter of diversity but of strategic importance to ensure our services are grounded in the realities of our communities. Please complete the anonymised EDI monitoring form using this link.

Want to chat about the role?

If you would like an informal chat about the role or the application process, please use this link to book in a MS Teams or phone call with our HR team.