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Housing Options Officer

Posting date:	19 April 2024
Salary:	£16.30 per hour
Additional salary information:	per hour PAYE depending on experience
Hours:	Full time
Closing date:	18 May 2024
Location:	Atherstone, Warwickshire, CV9 1DE
Company:	Triumph Consultants Ltd
Job type:	Temporary
Job reference:	N Warwickshire 5247775

Summary

What's involved with this role:

Temporary Housing Options Officer

Job Ref: N Warwickshire 5247775

Pay Rate: Up to £16.30 per hour PAYE depending on experience

Hours per week: 37 Monday – Friday, normal working hours

Role Length: This opening assignment is for 5 months

City: Atherstone, Warwickshire

Hybrid working – 3 days a week in the office

Pay rate negotiable for the right candidate

Housing Options Officers assess homeless applications and deliver prevention duties. They also assess waiting list applicants. We require an experienced officer that can deliver homelessness duties and has a positive approach to team working.

Key Responsibilities:

To ensure that good quality information about housing options is readily available for customers and to personally convey that information to customers who contact the Council for housing advice.
Work closely with partners to prevent homelessness to support this particular group.
Help to promote the housing options service to encourage applicants in housing need to use the service and therefore enable the Council to provide assistance through early intervention.
Implement a wide range of housing options. This will include supporting applicants to access options (for example access to prevention funds, debt advice services and support services, private sector leasing schemes, Local Authority Mortgage Scheme, supported housing) as well implementing those that will assist them to find alternative housing (for example mutual exchange register, housing register, rent guarantee scheme).
Administrate the Council’s mutual exchange list service as part of providing options for applicants.
Undertake the initial assessment of the circumstances of homeless applicants and decide whether the Prevention or Relief Duty is owed to them.
If the Prevent or Relief duty is owed to undertake a needs assessment of the homeless household, to provide a Personal Housing Plan for the applicant and keep both under review through close case management. Action will be required to take reasonable steps to assist the applicant to sustain their current accommodation or ensure that they are not homeless.
Following the initial assessment if the applicant meets the homelessness main duty criteria to ascertain their circumstances and refer them to the Housing Options and Lettings Team Leader or the Homeless Persons Officer.
Work closely with and support applicants to find solutions to their housing problems by using either agreed prevention tools or by working with an applicant to agree a bespoke solution to meet their needs.
Advise applicants whether they qualify to join the Council’s Housing Register and whether this is a positive housing option for them.
Assess individual applicants in accordance with the Lettings Scheme and ensure the efficient and fair implementation of the Council’s policy and procedures. This will include undertaking the necessary circumstances and information checks and registering applications. Verifying documentation, acting to prevent fraudulent applications and contacting other professionals as appropriate will be part of these duties.
Collect and collate, review and report on relevant data on the options service to inform the good management, improvement and development of the service.
Ensure the Council’s housing options and advice service is customer focused and where possible to work with customers to gain feedback in order to improve the service for them and promote the services provided.



NB: Please feel free to apply to us direct via jobs@tclrec.com by quoting the job reference and job title exactly. SEE DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS AD.

To help speed up the process of uploading your CV to the client we would suggest that you send us your CV in Word format (or equivalent) if possible, rather than as a PDF

If you are successful in securing this role, please note that for the entire duration of this contract, regardless of extension you will be working this role at the PAYE rate that has been advertised. For absolute clarity, we only work on a PAYE basis, rather than entertaining umbrella pay terms, we do not offer Ltd/umbrella or outside IR35 rates. If you wish to understand PAYE vs Umbrella more, please let us know and we can send you some additional information for clarity.

Please quote the Job Title & Vacancy Reference No. in your application, or we will be unable to match your CV to the role being applied for.


Other “Essential Requirements” – Please check to ensure that your CV addresses the following items:

Qualifications:

Educated to degree standard or equivalent relevant qualification and experience.



Knowledge & Experience:

Minimum of 12 months recent experience in a similar role, or context and ideally within a public sector organisation.
Experience of working co-operatively in partnership to deliver services.
A sound knowledge of legislation, current national housing policy issues and good practice as it relates to social housing allocations and tenancies.
A working knowledge of current homeless legislation.
Experience of assessing customers circumstances for access to services.
A working knowledge of welfare benefits and good practice in debt advice.



Skills & Abilities:

Problem solving skills and the ability to manage in difficult situations eg: with reducing budgets and within tight timelines
Excellent customer services skills and experience of working in front line customer service.
Ability to make decisions in accordance with homelessness legislation, convey it to an applicant and offer appropriate advice and support to ensure they are not homeless.
Excellent communication skills – both written and oral with an ability to present information clearly in a way that promotes understanding. This will include experience of interviewing and negotiating.
Proven ability to work with customers to resolve issues.
Able to manage the emotional demands of homeless applicants and support and guide them towards appropriate housing solutions.
Able to develop and maintain relationships and networks within and outside the Council in order to keep abreast of trends, initiatives and best practice.
Able to plan and manage time and workloads.
Able to work under pressure and maintain acceptable performance.
Strong IT skills including Microsoft packages or equivalent (e.g. G Suite).

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Job Ref: N Warwickshire 5247775


Anticipated Length of Assignment: Unless otherwise stated (we do carry the occasional permanent vacancy) all of our roles are technically temporary, though opening assignments can be and often are, extended by clients on a longer term basis and can sometimes become permanent.

Please do try to resist contacting us with requests for progress updates.

We really do read every CV sent to us. All applications will be acknowledged by a human, not a robot, provided the job remains live and provided your CV meets the “Essential Requirements” listed.

Please note that we do our level best to take down ads as soon as roles have been filled. We are not in the business of harvesting CVs.

Important: We will interpret your application as being permission to submit your CV to this role (with the right to represent you) unless you advise us to the contrary.