Head of Homelessness

MMP Consultancy are looking to recruit a Head of Homelessness Prevention & Assessment Services to work on an interim contract in London.

The Head of Homelessness Prevention will have overall strategic responsibility to deliver high quality housing advice and assessments, homelessness and prevention, rough sleeping, H&F link support services, developing corporate policies and strategies for the services whilst ensuring that the organisational goals, corporate vision, and statutory obligations are met at all times

Duties and Responsibilities:

- Responsible for working closely with the Assistant Director, Housing Management to deliver continuous service improvement, transformation and innovation and identification of developmental opportunities.
- Good people management and leadership skills who is self-motivated to provide line management and strategic direction to managers directly managed and have responsibility for the services, carrying out annual appraisals, 1:1s, training and development needs and SMART objective setting in line with Corporate and Departmental procedures.
- Manage the overall workload, staffing, financial and other resources of the service to ensure the most effective use of resources consistent with Council policy and priorities and relevant legislation.
- Administer, by authority of the Council through the Scheme of Delegation, all functions, duties and powers under housing legislation and relevant caselaw, as they relate to homelessness and housing needs including assessment and reviews.
- Analyse and report on performance in accordance with statutory and non-statutory services KPI's and LPI's linked to Service and Departmental Business Plan. Set and manage the achievement of service targets as set out in the current Service Plans for the areas responsible for and Service Level Agreements and operational performance targets.
- Lead on strategic management of the Council's Housing Register, developing service models to deliver a fair and transparent process, contributing to housing policy and procedures.
- Lead on needs assessment and complex cases panels, including the risk assessment of ex-offenders for public protection and re-housing under welfare guidelines.
- Achieve satisfactory quality in all aspects of the service's work by ensuring that all staff adhere to procedures, policies and practices and that adequate numbers of staff are deployed to maintain a safe, effective and efficient service at all times.
- Ensure that residents' and customers' confidentiality is maintained at all times and that policies, procedures and guidelines are adhered to ensuring that services are administratively sound and comply with GDPR requirements

Person Specification:

- Demonstrate an understanding of and commitment to Council policies in relation to Equal Opportunity, Customer Care and service delivery, and the ability to implement these policies in the workplace.
- Good understanding of the key issues facing local government, the wider public sector and partners and of local, regional and national policy
- Experience of working in a fast-paced housing management department
- Ability to work across multiple teams and to deliver transformation and service improvement projects.
- Experience of working with senior management team, councilors, executive directors, external stakeholders, and partnership organisations
- Experience of developing and maintaining relationships with council departments and external voluntary community partners to deliver positive outcomes for residents
- Effectively able to plan and prioritise workload and working to deadlines.
- Good organisational skills, to track priorities, work to deadlines and manage projects