Resident Financial Support Manager

Lead essential resident support, guide a dedicated team and strengthen local resilience As our Financial Support Manager, you’ll lead the front-line services that help our residents navigate hardship and access dependable crisis assistance. When people face financial difficulties, receiving prompt, fair and compassionate support makes all the difference. In this role, you’ll guide a dedicated team to deliver well-managed support, ensuring our safety net remains accessible, dignified and robust. Lead essential resident support, guide a dedicated team and strengthen local resilience As our Financial Support Manager, you’ll lead the front-line services that help our residents navigate hardship and access dependable crisis assistance. When people face financial difficulties, receiving prompt, fair and compassionate support makes all the difference. In this role, you’ll guide a dedicated team to deliver well-managed support, ensuring our safety net remains accessible, dignified and robust. What you’ll be doing Your focus will be providing visible, hands-on leadership across our Resident Financial Support services, overseeing vital provision including Crisis Payments, Home Start Essentials, Local Support Payments for Westminster City Council and other local welfare provision. Managing an established, experienced front-line team alongside newer colleagues, you’ll set clear standards, balance daily workloads and create an environment where staff feel supported to do their best work. You will not just manage from behind a desk; when demand peaks or complex cases arise, you’ll step directly into operational delivery, and resolve escalations and ensure our decisions are fair, consistent and defensible. A major priority will be leading the operational roll-out of our new Crisis Payments scheme while integrating elements of the Crisis Resilience Fund. You’ll connect application-based emergency support with broader financial resilience services, using demand insight to smooth customer journeys so residents receive joined-up help when they need it most. Working closely with internal departments, external partners and suppliers, you’ll ensure local support reaches residents promptly, equitably and transparently. Beyond everyday service delivery, you’ll manage support fund budgets, maintaining strong financial control, governance and risk mitigation. You’ll interrogate performance data, management information and reporting tools such as Excel and Power BI to spot emerging community needs and track service outcomes. Working closely with the Head of Financial Support and Improvement, you’ll use these findings to inform policy reviews, modernise digital systems and contribute to wider transformation and efficiency priorities across Finance and Assurance. For further details, please review the Job Description and Person Specification What you’ll bring You’ll bring proven operational management experience from a front-line or customer-focused public service environment, with the skills to lead, motivate and develop a dedicated team through periods of change. You understand the realities of financial hardship and combine an empathetic, person-centred approach with the sound judgement required to make fair, defensible decisions on complex and sensitive cases. A strong working knowledge of welfare benefits, discretionary support schemes and related regulations is essential, alongside demonstrable experience of managing public funding streams within agreed budgetary limits. You’re comfortable working with performance data, case management systems and reporting tools such as Excel and Power BI, using data from multiple sources to track trends, evaluate performance and present clear evidence to senior colleagues. Highly organised, resilient and practical, you can balance immediate day-to-day pressures with longer-term service improvements. Above all, you’re an excellent communicator who listens with respect, acts with integrity and builds trusted relati