Operational purpose
* Provide a professional and compliant customer facing Homelessness and Housing Solutions Advice Service firmly focussed on the prevention and relief of homelessness
* Support all officers, systems, and processes in operating the Homelessness and Housing Solutions and Voids, Allocations & Lettings teams
* To be responsible and accountable for the Local Authorities operations in accordance with its legal obligations to provide professional housing and homelessness advice services in accordance with Part VI & VII Housing Act 1996 (as amended); Homelessness Reduction Act 2017; Welfare Reform, Safeguarding and the Children’s Act.
* Support the strategic and operational managers in delivering the vision, strategies and initiatives for the Homelessness and Housing Solutions Team and the wider Housing Service of which you are an integral part.
Main duties
* Deliver superior quality Homelessness and Housing Solutions and Advice Services that are customer centric and have high regard for equality, diversity, understanding and respect for people and their individual circumstances.
* Act as the central hub for all approaches and enquiries to the homelessness, housing solutions and void and allocation service, committing to resolve all approaches and enquiries at first point of contact and where they cannot be resolved, ensuring timely co-ordination of onward referral to the right team or person.
* Operate a telephone duty system that ensures that all inbound telephone calls to the service are handled professionally and within any set service levels in operation at the time.
* Operate a professional customer facing triage service at public offices on a duty rota system, offering primary homelessness and housing solutions advice in accordance with Part VI & VII of the Homelessness Act, The Housing Acts, Homelessness Reduction Act and the Homelessness Code of Guidance, that enables customers to make informed decisions about their housing options and that enables you to make a decision to refer the case to a specialist officer through relevant systems and processes in operation at the time.
* In cases of emergency homelessness, undertake to find and secure temporary accommodation on behalf of specialist case officers
* Promote self-service at every opportunity and encourage and provide professional and courteous assistance to customers in accessing all aspects of the service that have become digitalised, either in person in public offices, in writing or over the telephone.
* In accordance with the Allocations Policy, give appropriate advice to applicants wishing to join the housing register, so that expectations are clearly managed, and they can make informed decisions about their options before joining the register.
* Where the approach results in an application to join the register, in every case ensure that appropriate support and assistance is provided to the applicant to make the application digitally and advice on how to operate the Redditch Home Choice System.
* Operate, administer, and maintain the Redditch Home Choice system for both new and transfer applicants through to full registration in the appropriate priority band.
* Assess and administer all incoming correspondence in accordance with policy and process in operation at the time.
* Be responsible for the corporate ordering system for purchases.
* Assist and support all officers and managers in the service in undertaking their day-today duties
* Assist and support the preparation of performance management reports and statistical data for analysis and reporting.
* Aid and support to managers in the development and implementation of service improvements, campaigns, and initiatives
* Be aware of the requirement for prudent control of expenditure, particularly for the provision of temporary accommodation and use of grant funding, always acting with a high degree of integrity and transparency and in accordance with financial regulation and policy.
* Maximise opportunities to nurture and develop relationships with Private Sector (PRS) Landlords in the discharge of duties, ensuring that any such initiatives or schemes to prevent homelessness in, or access to the PRS are maximised.
* Ensure you maintain and share up-to-date knowledge of housing legislation including the Housing Act, Homelessness Reduction Act, Codes of Guidance, case law, safeguarding and other best practice.
* Be responsible and accountable for the performance of yourself, your team, and the service, regularly reporting and feeding back on performance and being outspoken on perceived risks or threats to the service or on any emerging opportunities to improve what we do.
* Operate in accordance with all Council policies, guidance, and codes.
* Be responsible for risk management, ensuring both yourself and your colleagues are safe.
* Nurture and maintain partnership work and collaborations with all internal and external teams, agencies, and partners relevant to successful delivery of your service.
* Be responsible and accountable for effective and accurate operation of relevant IT systems in relation to delivery of your area of the service.
* Be constructive and positive in your approach to work and supportive of your colleagues.
* To think critically and challenge cultures, ideas, and ways of working to achieve a culture of continuous improvement and efficient and dynamic service delivery
* To carry out all duties with the highest degree of integrity, ensuring that requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998 are complied with
Person Specification
The specific skills, knowledge, abilities, qualifications, and behaviours which are needed to effectively undertake the main duties and achieve the roles purpose.
These will be assessed using the information available from:
1. Application form
2. Interview
3. Exercise (Case study or exercise)
4. Evidence (Certificates, registrations, and memberships)
Qualifications & Professional Memberships
* Essential: GCSEs or equivalent including English, Maths and or a second language at Grade A-C
* Desirable: To have or be willing to work towards CIH Professional qualification Level 3 or other relevant qualification
Knowledge and Experience
* Essential: At least 3 years demonstrable experience working in a homelessness, housing options or other relevant customer advice service
* Essential: Knowledge of legislation, regulation, and policy in relation to the provision of the service
* Essential: Experience of providing professional high-quality customer services to customers often with multiple complex issues and who may be in highly emotive situations
* Essential: Experience of assessing and meeting people’s needs and requirements and managing expectations
* Essential: Experience of problem solving through collaboration and partnership working that has achieved excellent outcomes
* Essential: Experience of call handling and operating specialist IT systems
* Essential: Administrative and assistive experience
* Desirable: Experience of service improvement and being involved in projects
* Desirable: Good general knowledge of legislation, regulation, and policy in relation to the provision of generic housing services
* Desirable: Some experience of casework and making referrals
Key Skills, Behaviours and Personal Attributes
* Essential: You put internal and external customers and stakeholders at the centre of everything you do; ensuring that you are available and use prompt personal contact and open discussions to understand your customers. You are tolerant, respectful, and polite when working with people and apply policy and procedure accurately to achieve excellent outcomes and solutions.
* Essential: You are highly organised, careful and have high standards and attend to the detail, with an element of self‑measurement in all you do. You understand how housing systems and processes work and interrelate, both in and outside of the Council. You ensure that you use the systems correctly and to their full potential and seek out and suggest improvements to systems and processes.
* Essential: You manage your own performance and support others to achieve their goals, playing your part in providing excellent service delivery. You raise any issues and obstacles that hamper you or your team and suggest solutions.
* Essential: You can recognise what are urgent or important tasks and prioritise your own workload accordingly to meet any deadlines. You are a positive and active team player and will pull together to deliver the purposes set by the managers efficiently, being accountable for the performance and results of both yourself and your team, raising issues that affect performance with the right people.
* Essential: You recognise the impact of yours and your teams’ role on the work and performance of others. You can identify and assess risk and the potential impact it might have and work methodically with others to develop solutions to eliminate or deal with identified risks.
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