Compliance Assistant 2025

Hackney Education provides a range of services to support the education of children, young people and adults in our inner London borough. Hackney is one of the UK’s highest performing local authorities, serving one of London’s best places to live and work. Within our diverse borough we serve a wide range of children and young people. We have a particular focus on supporting less advantaged families: Hackney figures in the 10% most deprived boroughs in England on a number of measures.

Hackney Education’s key priority is to improve the life chances of every child, young person and learner: making Hackney the most forward looking education system in the UK, where schools, settings and partners provide an exciting environment which ensures inclusion and success for everyone. We see our borough as being one of the best places in the country for young people to grow, learn, develop and achieve –and one of the best places for colleagues to work and thrive in our education system.

The role

To help us ensure that Hackney Education responds with maximum efficiency and effectiveness to complaints, freedom of information requests (FOIs) and subject access requests (SARs), we are seeking a Compliance Assistant.

This new role will support the Compliance Officer in promoting and enabling the highest levels of staff compliance with processes governing complaints, FOIs and SARs, which includes meeting statutory deadlines.

In addition to ensuring that our complainants and information requesters receive good and timely responses, as Compliance Assistant you will assist Hackney Education in using complaints and information requests as opportunities to reflect on and improve the services we provide, in line with our systemic, trauma-informed and anti-racist (STAR) approach.

About you

• A good standard of education, i.e. a minimum of 5 GCSEs (or equivalent) at grade C or above.
• Good literacy and numeracy.
• A basic knowledge of Education services.
• An understanding of the differing needs of children, young people and their families, and the role that Hackney Education plays in meeting those needs.
• An understanding of effective customer service, and why this is important.
• Familiarity with the importance of engaging with service users in relation to complaints, FOIs and SARs.
• An understanding of how service improvement and staff development activity helps Hackney Education, and the wider Council, to meet its objectives.
• Awareness of the factors that impact on children and young people’s ability to learn, and a commitment to helping them achieve the best possible outcomes. Knowledge and awareness of the impact of systemic and everyday racism and oppression on the lives of children, young people and their families.
• The ability to plan and manage tasks, setting clear and measurable objectives, timescales and progress monitoring, often with competing deadlines.
• The ability to remain highly organised and focused while working under pressure and to set deadlines.
• The ability to take detailed, action-focused minutes with multiple participants to a high standard.
• The ability and confidence to communicate in a clear, concise and informative way with people at all levels, including Elected Members and senior management, and to deal sensitively and courteously with all internal and external contacts.
• The ability to appropriately adjust personal work priorities and to assist colleagues in meeting the service area’s priorities and objectives.
• The ability and willingness to respond positively to a variety of requests,at short notice, which may not immediately seem relevant to the post-holder.
• A detailed working knowledge of ICT systems, the ability to understand and quickly develop a working familiarity with a range of software packages and computer hardware, and the ability to use such packages to produce good quality information.
• Written presentation and general communication skills commensurate with the duties of the post.
• Working as part of a team.
• Working independently and managing own workload.
• Collating and presenting information in different formats depending on the needs of the audience.
• Working with people from a range of backgrounds and at different levels of seniority.

Our process

We operate a fair and open anonymous selection process. Therefore, we do not accept supporting statements or CV’s.

To proceed with your application, you will need to create an account and submit your application.

As part of the application process, you will need to complete a number of competency based questions. These questions allow you to demonstrate your suitability for the role and provide examples of your skills, knowledge and experience outlined in the job description.

We understand the benefits of using AI in the workplace. However, if you are thinking of using this tool to submit your application, we ask you to think about what value it will add. AI tools tend to lack the personal touch and authenticity we value in candidates. We encourage you to showcase your unique knowledge and skills using your own voice.

Interviews wc 19th may 2025. 

We are also working towards our vision, which is to be a place for everyone; where residents and staff can be proud; a place that celebrates diversity and where everyone can feel valued, included and involved. In order to achieve this, we look for people who are: Proud; Ambitious; Pioneering; Open; Proactive; Inclusive.

Hackney Council works to eradicate discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy and maternity, age and marital status. We also recognise that people can be disadvantaged by their social and economic circumstances, so we will also work to eliminate discrimination and disadvantage caused by social class. We also welcome those interested in flexible working. We particularly welcome applications from disabled people and people from a black and ethnic minority background as these groups are currently under represented in our workforce.