Job info |
Job info details |
Job title |
Assistant Planning Technician |
Strategic team/Directorate |
Place |
Service |
Planning |
Business unit |
Planning Support |
Responsible to (day to day issues) |
Team Leader – Service Support |
Accountable to (line manager) |
Team Leader – Service Support |
Salary grade |
D |
JE ref |
JOT229 |
1. Key purpose of job
- To provide assistance to the Planning Team as the first point of contact for customer enquiries.
- To provide assistance in the accurate registration of planning applications, enforcement cases and appeal cases ensuring the correct fee has been paid and electronically plotting the site accurately.
- To ensure that support is provided in the provision of a statutory public register on the Council’s public facing website including any images are of high-quality suitable for display.
2. Anticipated outcomes of post
- The Planning Support Team is able to respond to the wide variety of customer enquiries in a timely and effective manner with the provision of accurate responses.
- All registrations of planning applications, enforcement cases and appeal cases are made within a timely manner and allocated to an appropriate case officer to take forward.
- All documents which are required to be displayed on the Council’s public facing website are appropriate, in that they are to scale and at a high quality.
3. List key duties and accountabilities of the post
- Answering customer enquiries which come in via telephone or email, providing accurate responses as the first point of contact.
- Undertake research required to support answers for customer queries and applications where necessary.
- Undertaking the scanning of a wide variety of documents, ensuring they are to an appropriate scale and that the image is of high quality to enable it to be displayed on the Council’s public facing website.
- Registration of planning applications, enforcement cases and appeal cases.
- Calculation of planning application fees.
- Electronic plotting of sites.
- Allocation of cases to case officers.
- Accurate logging of supporting documentation, to include ascertaining document type, ensuring unique reference and version control details are captured.
- Checking all documentation content and undertaking redaction of specific information in preparation of them being displayed on the Council’s public facing website.
- Indexing of documents to the Council’s electronic document management system, to include the use of software to enhance images or reduce file sizes.
- Processing payments electronically over the telephone or by cheque and creating the appropriate waybills to correspond with payment.
- Raising requests for refunds where required.
- Generation of purchase orders where required.
- Ensuring payment of invoices raised and paid as appropriate.
4. Budgetary/Financial Responsibilities of the post
- No specific budgetary responsibilities
- Processing of electronic payments and cheques received in support of planning applications.
- (Fees and amounts can vary daily from hundreds to tens of thousands of pounds)
5. Supervision/Line Management Responsibilities of the post
- No supervision or line management responsibilities.
6. Working environment and conditions of the post
- This role will be suitable for agile working so can work both from home and from the office but some attendance at the office may be necessary.
7. Physical demands of the post
8. Specific resources used by the post
- General office equipment and IT required.
- Specialist large format printer/scanner within the office.
9. Key contacts and relationships
External
- Members of the public.
- Builders and Contractors.
- Architects.
- SWISCO departments such as Highways.
Internal
- Other service departments of Torbay Council.
- Council Members.
10. Other duties
- To undertake additional duties as required, commensurate with the level of the job.
Other Information
- All staff must commit to Equal Opportunities and Anti-Discriminatory Practice.
- The Council operates a Smoke-Free Policy and the post-holder is prohibited from smoking in any of the Council's buildings (including Council owned and Council leased buildings, but excluding designated areas in residential schemes), enclosed spaces within the curtilage of buildings, and Council vehicles. The Council does not permit smoking breaks within work time, however, in services where the flexi-scheme is in operation, employees may take reasonable break times outside of core hours, in accordance with flexi-time arrangements. Employees should follow the flexi-scheme procedure for agreeing time away from their duties in the normal manner with their immediate colleagues and line manager, with break start and finish times being recorded, as with any other break-time arrangement.
- The post-holder is expected to familiarise themselves with and adhere to all relevant Council Policies and Procedures.
- The post-holder must comply with the Council’s Health and Safety requirements as outlined in the H&S policy appropriate to the role.
- The post is eligible for both hybrid and permanent home working.
- The post-holder must be committed to the Council’s Core Values for employees – “Torbay Council employees are committed to being forward thinking, people orientated and adaptable - always with integrity”. Evidence will be sought during the probation and appraisal processes.
- You will be asked to complete a Criminal Records Self Declaration Form. Criminal convictions will only be taken into account when they are relevant to the post. You will only be asked to disclose ‘unspent’ convictions.
- Torbay Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and applicants must be willing to undergo the checks appropriate to the post applied for.
- As this post meets the requirements of the Immigration Act 2017 (part 7) the ability to converse at ease with members of the public and provide advice in accurate spoken English is essential for the post.
Person Specification
Note for Candidate
All Candidates
The supporting statement on your application form will be used to assess ability to meet the essential requirements of the role, so you should explain how you meet each of the numbered essential requirements within your supporting statement.
In a competitive situation, the desirable criteria may be taken into consideration, so you are encouraged to show how you also meet each of the desirable criteria.
Candidates who consider that they have a disability
Reasonable adjustments will be made to the job, job requirements or recruitment process for candidates with a disability.
If you consider yourself to have a disability you should indicate this on your application form, providing any information you would like us to take into account with regard to your disability in order to offer a fair selection interview.
Where ever possible and reasonable we will make adjustments and offer alternatives to help you through the application and selection process.
If you have indicated that you have a disability on your application form you will be guaranteed an interview if you clearly demonstrate in your supporting evidence how you broadly meet the essential requirements of the role.
Job info |
Job info details |
Job Title |
Assistant Planning Technician |
Strategic team/Directorate |
Place |
Service |
Planning |
Business unit |
Planning Support |
Skills and effectiveness
Essential skills and effectiveness
- Effective, clear and concise communication skills.
- Customer focused attitude.
- Innovative and creative problem-solving skills.
- Effective and efficient accuracy levels with data entry to include attention to detail.
- Effective researching skills.
- Effective lone working and teamwork.
- Effective and efficient organisational skills, to enable effective time management and working to deadlines.
- Effective mathematical skills.
- Effective IT use and the ability to use Microsoft systems to include Office 365.
- As this post meets the requirements of the Immigration Act 2016 (part 7), the ability to converse at ease with members of the public and provide advice in accurate spoken English is essential for the post.
Desirable skills and effectiveness
- Effective IT use of specialist software (including databases, mapping software, finance and document management systems) and equipment (Large format printer/scanner).
Knowledge
Essential knowledge
- Effective knowledge and understanding of providing a professional and customer focused service.
- Effective knowledge and understanding of digital filing systems.
- Effective Knowledge and understanding how to redact sensitive information.
- Effective knowledge and understanding of confidentiality.
Desirable knowledge
- Effective knowledge and understanding of the planning application process.
- Effective knowledge and understanding of local government procedures.
- Effective knowledge and understanding of scaling and measuring plans.
Experience and achievements
Essential experience and achievements
- Previous experience of working in a customer focused service.
- Experience of collaborative working.
- Previous experience of data entry.
- Previous experience of payment chasing and processing, raising of purchase orders, waybills and invoices.
- Previous experience of image reformatting and document scanning.
- Previous experience of generating and writing correspondence.
Desirable experience and achievements
- Previous experience of working in a planning team/service.
- Previous experience of calculating planning application fees.
- Previous experience of managing case work.
- Previous experience scaling and measuring plans.
Qualifications/professional memberships
Essential qualifications/professional memberships
- Qualified to GCSE or equivalent level.
Desirable qualifications/professional memberships
- Qualified to A level or equivalent.
- A qualification in a planning related subject at GCSE or equivalent level.
Other requirements
Other requirements of the job role
- Ability to travel efficiently around the Bay in order to carry out duties.
- Ability to accommodate unsociable hours.
- Ability to accommodate occasional homeworking.
- Ability to accommodate occasional office working.