Housing Officer

**About Us**:
**THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF SERENA’S VISION**

Growth, Planning and Housing in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories. Where innovative and open-minded people bring everything to the cause. Even expertise from surprising places.

Take Serena. She is an absolute force of nature at the heart of our Church Street regeneration. And she puts the residents first in everything. Serena’s vision is clear. Regeneration isn’t just about bricks and concrete. It’s about communities. It’s about the environment. It’s about the lives of people and how they feel about where they call home. Serena is their advocate, making sure residents’ voices aren’t just heard, but drive the changes we’re making. The future is safe in her hands.

Please view the extraordinary story of Serena’s Vision **here**.

**The Role**:
As a Housing Officer you can make your own powerful contribution. You’ll deliver a friendly, effective, professional and high-quality service as you manage a designated patch of properties that may include Social Housing tenants, Council leaseholders, Community Supported residents and some out of borough properties. Taking ownership and accountability of any issues that arise, and ensuring they’re progressed while communicating with residents’ groups, customers and stakeholders, you’ll also lead on the development, progress and publicity of estate action plans in line with the Estate Action Plan procedure, working closing with key residents and attending meetings as required.

Providing a visible presence on estates, carrying out home visits and estate inspections, and attending local surgeries, we’ll also expect you to establish regular meetings to discuss issues and develop and monitor estate action plans, and work with a range of Council and external services to support residents. This will involve working closely and co-operatively with the Housing Income Team, ASB team, Leasehold Services, Repairs, Housing Solutions, Estate Services, Customer Services, Major Works Engagement Team, Development Teams and others.

This is a role with a wide range of additional responsibilities, including safeguarding vulnerable residents by investigating concerns received from other services, drafting responses to formal complaints, and ensuring that these are of a consistently high standard and provided within agreed timeframes. You’ll also carry out flexible tenancy reviews and renewals, ensure that Housing Management casework is properly managed and progressed in line with WCC policies and procedures, provide support to victims of domestic violence, and lead on reports of low-level nuisance cases which are not categorised as anti-social behaviour.

Please refer to the **Job Description** for more information.

**About You**:
With experience of dealing with the public or providing customer services, you’ll be a superb team worker and possess a good standard of literacy and numeracy. Knowledge of tenancy law and general tenancy management would be desirable, as would experience of working in a housing management role.

A motivating and creative communicator, you’ll be capable of demonstrating and inspiring enthusiasm, drive and a people-focused attitude to your work. It’s essential that you have an understanding and appreciation of Diversity and Equal Opportunities, the ability to plan, organise and prioritise your timetable, and the skills to produce work of a consistently high standard. We’ll also expect you to be familiar with a wide range of commonly used IT and computer systems.

**What We Offer**:
Westminster is an amazing place. There are 250,000 diverse residents, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people working here every day. We’re an organisation that wants the very best for our residents: a supportive and safe environment, the chance to grow and learn throughout their lives, to build fantastic careers in world-leading industries, to have access to high-quality, affordable housing and to retire into the community with dignity and pride.

We want Westminster to be a place where you can make the most of your talents and thrive as an individual. That’s why we’re proud to have won Best Health & Wellbeing Initiative in the 2020/21 Business Culture Awards. By being the best you can be, you’ll help us adapt to the changing needs of our organisation and communities.

At Westminster City Council, we are passionate about our aim to be an inclusive workplace for all that reflects the communities we serve, and we believe everyone is valued. We particularly welcome applicants from underrepresented backgrounds, including B.A.ME, Black, Asian and Multiple Ethnic backgrounds, LGBTQ+ and those with hidden or visible disabilities. We’re committed to ensuring all our staff - regardless of gender, age, religion, sexuality, ethnicity or disability - can succeed. We value diversity and appreciate that people work in di