The role

The Building Control Business Support Officer plays a pivotal role in ensuring the smooth operation of the Planning Division’s support services. This role provides a comprehensive administrative and technical support function across a wide range of activities, including planning applications, land charges, local authority searches, street naming and numbering, planning enforcement, corporate enquiries, and financial processes. You will work closely with case officers, managers, and the Business Support Manager to maintain high-quality service delivery, ensuring accurate information, timely processing, and effective coordination across the division.

This position involves managing the collection and reconciliation of fees, monitoring service income, and contributing to the review of building control applications and viability assessments to support full income recovery. The post also includes coordinating key administrative arrangements for planning committee meetings, sub-committees, and design and review panels, ensuring that documentation and systems are up to date and aligned with statutory and corporate requirements.

The role requires oversight of technical support officers and the delivery of training on relevant systems, while continuously developing information systems to monitor performance, track key metrics, and ensure service improvements. This position offers the opportunity to contribute to a central London borough undergoing rapid transformation, supporting the Building Control Service in delivering efficient, high-quality services that underpin sustainable development and regeneration.

What you'll be doing

Providing comprehensive technical and administrative support across planning applications, land charges, enforcement, and corporate enquiries.
Managing fee collection, reconciliation, and monitoring service income to support full cost recovery.
Coordinating planning committee, sub-committee, and review panel meetings, ensuring all documentation and systems are up to date.
Maintaining and updating planning registers and land registry datasets to ensure accurate records.
Supervising and supporting technical support officers, delivering guidance and training on systems and processes.
Developing information systems to monitor performance, track key metrics, and support continuous service improvement.

What you'll bring to the role

Strong experience in a business support role within a customer-focused environment, ideally in a planning or local government contextt
Knowledge of building control processes, planning applications, land charges, and local authority procedures.
Proven ability to manage complex administrative processes to deadlines while maintaining accuracy and quality.
Experience in fee collection, reconciliation, and monitoring to support financial processes.
Excellent communication skills, able to present information clearly and provide guidance to colleagues and stakeholders.
Competence in using information systems to monitor performance, generate reports, and drive continuous improvement.
Commitment to delivering high standards of customer service and maintaining professionalism in a fast-paced environment.
Flexibility, problem-solving skills, and a proactive approach to improving processes and supporting team performance.

Additional information

Why Southwark?

Southwark Council is the largest local authority social landlord in London, managing 55,000 homes lived in by 40% of Southwark’s residents. We are home to over 18,300 businesses including iconic London venues such as The Shard, The Tate Modern and Borough Market along with many social enterprises and we have a young, diverse, and growing population.

At Southwark we are committed to making our borough just and fair and are taking positive action to tackle inequalities. Our residents and communities are our greatest asset and the passion we have for Southwark is shared by millions of Londoners who enjoy our outstanding cultural offer, use our hospitals and attend our universities.

Our refreshed borough plan and focus on Southwark Stands Together, (which is our work with Southwark’s communities and the council’s staff to tackle racism, injustice and inequality) underpins all that we do.

We particularly welcome applications from members of the Black, Asian and ethnic minority communities to increase representation at senior management level in the Council.

Additonal details:

Full time, 36 hours per week, Monday to Friday. This role offers a flexible hybrid working arrangement, with time split between working from home and our Tooley Street offices.

Salary range £38,637 - £44,937 per annum

Employee benefits:

For more information about the wide variety of benefits you can take advantage of please visit our Staff Benefits page.

Recruitment timetable:

Closing date: 5th May 2026 at 23:59*

*We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role, in which case we will move the key dates for the process. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

Interview date: 13th May 2026

Disability Confident (guaranteed interview) scheme:

As part of our commitment to inclusion, we offer guaranteed interviews for specific groups of people. To qualify, you'll need to meet the minimum requirements for the role, and identify with one of the below criteria:

Members of the Armed Forces and veterans
Are currently in care, or have previously been in care
If you consider yourself to be disabled or if you have a long-term health condition.

Attachments

Click here to view the Job Description and Person Specification