Senior Housing Assistant

Location: The designated office base is Abbey House, Abingdon. The councils operate in a truly flexible, and hybrid way where the focus is on outcomes not where you work.
Salary and grade: £36,032 per year, Grade 5
Duration of role: Permanent
Hours per week: 37

Closing date: Monday 6th May 2024
Interviews: Thursday 9th and Friday 10th May 2024

About the role and what we’re looking for

The Housing Needs team aims to ensure that people in housing need have access to the housing and support necessary to meet their requirements.

The Senior Housing Assistant will play a key role in meeting the aims of the team by:

Main duties and responsibilities

• providing leadership and support for the Housing Assistants, including completing 121s, holding regular meetings and organising appropriate training.
• helping the Housing Assistants with more complex housing register enquiries, including issues relating to eligibility and banding priority.
• assisting the Lettings Team Leader in producing housing statistics, reports and performance data as required.
• assisting the Lettings Team Leader by drafting new procedures when required and ensuring that current procedures are up to date and applied by the team.
• assist with formal reviews of housing register decisions, including issues relating to eligibility, exclusions and banding priority.
• ensuring housing register service standards are achieved and corporate priorities are met.
• answering telephone enquiries and dealing with correspondence relating to applications to the housing registers.
• assessing new applications and changes of circumstances to the housing registers.
• processing invoices and dealing with enquiries relating to payments.
• ensuring that accurate and appropriate records are kept and that confidentiality and data protection are always observed.

About you

Your essential skills, knowledge and experience

• experience of managing a busy team
• knowledge of tenancy law and housing legislation
• experience of dealing with vulnerable, and in some cases distressed people
• experience of face to face and telephone contact with customers
• ability to use IT systems, such as email, word and excel
• knowledge of advice and support services likely to be relevant to the team’s customers
• good oral and written communication skills
• good interpersonal skills
• understanding of confidentiality
• experience of working well in a team
• full driving license and use of a car insured for business use.

Your essential qualifications

• 5 GCSEs at grades A – C, or equivalent level of qualification

If you have the following experience or qualifications – it’s a bonus.

• knowledge of welfare rights
• knowledge of data protection legislation
• familiarity with the Districts
• experience of working in local government
• experience of working in social housing

About us

Our vision and values are important to the councils, and we expect you to support them and embed them in the way we work.

The benefits we offer:

• A basic 25 day annual leave per annum, rising to 30 days after five years. You also have all the bank holidays to look forward to and time off between Christmas and New Year.
• Flexible working and annualised hours – a flexible approach to work that our employees love!
• Salary pay awards – most jobs give scope for a pay increase after six months or the following April (depending on your start date) and we also review salaries each April.
• A generous career average pension scheme which includes life insurance of three times your salary
• The opportunity to purchase a bike through Cyclescheme (cheaper than directly through a store) so that you can cycle to work!
• Various schemes to keep you healthy (reduced gym membership, free swims, free eye tests for DSE users and more)
• We give you two days per year to volunteer within the local community.
• A range of resources, support, and activities to help you maintain your wellbeing including a monthly wellbeing hour in addition to annualised hours (the ability to work flexibly as long as, over the course of the year, you complete your contracted hours) and annual leave.

We look forward to hearing from you.

You may also have experience in the following: Housing Officer, Customer Service Advisor, Social Housing, Administration Assistant, Community Development, Vulnerable People, Supported Housing, Service Delivery, Housing Management, Supported Living, Sheltered Housing, Housing Assistant, etc.

REF-213 392