Passenger Transport Planning Assistant/Business Support

Our benefits

We offer:

• a competitive salary
• a pension scheme, where we pay a significant contribution on top of your contribution. It provides life cover and ill-health protection.
• opportunities to develop your skills, knowledge and potential in a large unitary council
• generous leave entitlement (27 days, rising to 32 days) and bank holidays, plus the option to buy up to an extra 10 days
• agile and flexible working arrangements to help you with a healthy work-life balance.

About the role

The Passenger Transport Planning Assistant will support the Home to School Transport team in the assessment, planning and procurement of new and amended transport requests, ensuring that the service meets the demands and any specialist requirements of the service user.

This frontline service within Highways and Waste provides transport to vulnerable adults and children including those with special educational needs. It also provides transport for children and young people attending Mainstream schools as well as providing transport for Social care requirements.

The post holder will support the Transport Team i through maintaining accurate records, communicating with service users, their families and other stakeholders and generally providing administrative support to the team as a whole.

What will you be doing?

Home to School transport is a high-profile statutory service for the Council. You will be part of a small but diverse team within the wider operational team. Your focus will be supporting your team members as they approve applications, and plan and arrange home to school and social care transport in a timely manner.  You will handle communication with parents and other stakeholders, both in writing and verbally.  You will be responsible for making sure that the records are accurately maintained, and that queries and concerns are referred to the colleagues best placed to deal with them.

At the heart of our service are children and young people, many of whom have additional needs requiring extra, and sometimes specialist, support. Understanding the challenges that these young people face will help you and the team make the correct decisions and identify appropriate transport solutions. You will work closely with your colleagues and other stakeholders, to ensure that the service user experience is efficient and consistent, and that the service we deliver is cost effective and represents the best value for all. 

About you

You will have a good standard of spoken and written English. You will be IT literate and competent in the use of common IT systems, especially Excel, Teams and able to work with databases and systems outside the popular software in common use. 

We expect you to have previous experience of a range of administrative duties, including preparing reports, reviewing and issuing documentation, managing sensitive data in accordance with GDPR, and dealing with frontline customer queries.  You will need an understanding of the needs of young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, and the additional challenges that these young people can face.

Your attention to detail will help you to ensure that our records are accurate and always up to date.  Your good communication skills and your empathy with others will enable you to respond to all calls in a professional and sympathetic manner and to build good relationships with our customers and other stakeholders.  You will be a team player, able to react to changing work pressures and demand but able to support your colleagues through it all.

Experience within a transport planning environment, ideally passenger transport, would be an advantage, however attitude and willingness to learn are more important than previous experience.  

About us

We are a new unitary council, established in April 2021; we are one of the largest unitary councils in the country. Our vision for North Northants is to be 'A place where everyone has the best opportunities and quality of life'.

Our priorities are:

• helping people live active fulfilled lives
• caring for our young people, providing them with high quality education and opportunities
• enabling a thriving and successful economy
• leading on a green and sustainable environment
• ensuring our communities are connected so they can shape their lives and where they live
• providing modern public services

Our values, as chosen by our staff, are - Customer-focused, Respectful, Efficient, Supportive and Trustworthy.

Your differences make us different - Achieve Together.

We are undertaking consultation with the Trade Unions on terms and conditions and the future NNC pay structure and during this time are appointing new employees on interim spot salaries. You will be advised of the outcome and any impact on your role once this work is complete.