Operations Manager

THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF MATT'S IMPACT ON HOUSING CONDITIONS

Public Protection & Licensing in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories—where people are passionate about making a real difference in residents' lives.

Take Matt, a Team Leader in the Private Sector Housing team. His journey started as an Environmental Health Officer, but his drive and dedication saw him rise to lead a team focused on improving housing conditions across the city.

No two days are the same for Matt. He leads his team in responding to complaints from tenants facing unsafe living conditions, ensuring that issues like damp, mould, and cold homes are tackled effectively. He also plays a crucial role in bringing empty properties back into use and supporting vulnerable residents.

Beyond his day-to-day work, Matt is shaping the future of the profession. Leading a recruitment campaign to bring in the next generation of Environmental Health Officers, ensuring that Westminster continues to have the expertise needed to drive change in the housing sector.

Matt's leadership isn't just about enforcement; it's about problem-solving, collaboration, and making a lasting impact. Whether he's guiding his team, working with landlords to improve housing standards, or supporting tenants in need, his focus is always on creating safer, healthier homes for all.

As the Operations Manager within Private Sector Housing, you will lead a dedicated and driven team of environmental health professionals, committed to using our residential licensing schemes to ensure our residents have access to safe, secure and good quality homes.

Managing the operational delivery of the Service, you'll work to ensure our private residents live in safe, well-managed, energy efficient accommodation, and enjoy a life free from the hazards that could affect their health and wellbeing. Committed to delivering improvements in housing standards, you'll be responsible for overseeing the implementation, operation and renewal of mandatory HMO, Additional HMO and Selective Licensing schemes, and ensure properties comply with all the relevant legislation.

Supporting the progression of complex enforcement cases and ensuring that robust procedures are in place for inspections, civil penalties and prosecutions balancing educating landlords on the requirements under these schemes, with the need for legitimate enforcement. You'll be responsible for ensuring that this service is financially sustainable, reconciling the generation of income through licensing fees, recovering costs through civil penalties, and the resources required to deliver it.

Leading by example as you role model our values and behaviours, and committed to the principles of equity and diversity, you'll work closely with your colleagues, partners and other stakeholders as you help to build a sustainable, highly effective organisation, and develop our reputation as a successful council delivering great value for its residents.

Please refer to the Job Description for more information.

To be a success in this significant role you'll have well developed experience of leading and developing teams in a large multi-disciplined organisation with comparable scope, budgets and resources to ours, and the ability to lead our Private Sector Housing licensing schemes. Capable of establishing and building partnerships and productive working relationships with senior managers, councillors, partner organisations, communities, public agencies and statutory bodies, you'll also have a successful track record of resource, budget, quality and performance management.

You will excel in inspiring, motivating, and guiding your team to achieve outstanding performance, thanks to your exceptional interpersonal skills. Your advanced communication abilities—both written and verbal—will enable you to engage and influence colleagues and stakeholders from all backgrounds. Additionally, your strong financial acumen will allow you to drive efficiencies through innovative and effective working practices. Above all, you are dedicated to fostering a workplace culture that is supportive, collaborative, and rooted in mutual respect.

Demonstrating a robust commitment to customer service, you will ensure not only that statutory obligations and community expectations are consistently met, but also that potential risks are proactively managed. Your comprehensive understanding of the challenges facing local government—alongside expertise in the legal, financial, and political landscape of public sector management—will underpin your approach. Confident in navigating political and cultural complexities, you will excel at leading successful projects and change initiatives, translating broad strategic goals into clear, actionable operational plans.

Westminster City Council is committed to supporting Care Leavers into the workplace. Care Leavers seeking their first job and who wish to be considered under our scheme, will automatically be invited to interview should they meet the essential criteria for the role.

The Council is committed to achieving diverse shortlists to support our desire to increase the number of staff from underrepresented groups in our workforce. We especially encourage applications from a Global Majority (GM), people who are Black, Asian, Brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south, and or have been racialised as 'ethnic minorities' (formally known as B.A.M.E, Black, Asian and multiple ethnic) background and, while the role is open to all applicants, we will utilise the positive action provisions of the Equality Act 2010 to appoint a candidate from a global majority background where there is a choice between two candidates of equal merit. If you are from a Global Majority background you can self-declare this to the hiring manager as part of our positive action commitments.

Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. Westminster City Council's strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city's future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe.

At Westminster City Council, we pride ourselves on being an inclusive workplace and employer of choice. We encourage and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that, at all levels, represents the communities we serve. We champion equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, has a sense of belonging and is empowered to be their best, that is the Westminster Way. To find out more about how we do this visit

As a forward thinking Council we appreciate that people work in different ways, therefore our staff benefit from working a range of flexible working patterns as well as Agile working.

The Council is a Disability Confident Employer. If you have declared a disability in your application , we guarantee an interview if you meet the essential criteria of the job. If you are invited for interview, you will be asked if you need any reasonable adjustments in order to attend, and we will make these wherever possible.

We reserve the right to extend or close this vacancy early without warning subject to the volume of suitable applicants.