Head of Housing

**Job Title**: Head of Housing & Customer Service

**Contract**: Permanent

**Hours**: 9am - 5pm (35 hours per week)

**Department**: Operations

**Reports to**: Director of Operations

**Responsible for**:Neighbourhood Housing Team Leader

Customer Services Manager

Tenancy Sustainment Officers

Housing Projects Administrator

**Location**: Blue Star House, Brixton

**Overall Aim**
- Responsible for maximising opportunities for Housing for Women to identify and progress to completion, the disposal of assets approved via an Options Appraisal process.
- Responsible for the delivery of a high performing housing management service to all HfW residents.
- Create a service environment that places the delivery of excellent services to customers at the heart of everything we do by developing and maintaining skilled, well trained, and managed motivated workforce.
- Stimulate and manage change to ensure that a culture of continuous review and improvement is embedded within the service, so that ‘traditional thinking’ is challenged, and others are empowered, and innovation is pursued with a focus on our customers.
- Reponsible for the development of a disposal process and procedure that provides a quality approach for customers and management of all associated delivery and financial risks.
- Responsible for building relationships with Local Authorities, other housing providers, internal teams, and key partners, ensuring that you understand Housing for Women’s role and services.
- Be a driver for excellent communications with residents and to work closely with internal and external stakeholders to implement service improvements and deliver customer value and value for money through effective operational performance management of HfW housing management community engagement services.
- Manage and process changes of use, support the marketing of sites, ensure compliance, and that schedules of dilapidations and notices, etc. are dealt with promptly.
- Procure appropriate legal advice in a timely manner in order to ensure that risks are managed, limited and/or eliminated.
- To be an active part of the Senior Leadership Team, driving the HfW Corporate Strategy which is dedicated to achieving our vision and Business Plan priorities for our customers

**Principle Accountabilities**

**Housing Projects**
- Work with key stakeholders to ensure that all obligations are fulfilled by Housing for Women in relation to property valuations, property disposal and any related estate management issues.
- Ensure the implementation of good/best practice principles in Housing Management and ensure you contribute positively to the progress of Housing for Women.
- Write and update relevant policies and/or procedures, e.g., Decant, Communications Strategy, Tenant Engagement, etc for affected blocks.
- Contribute to specific improvement projects and pilots across Housing for Women and work as part of mutually supportive and experienced teams.
- Operate, progress and deliver disposal projects within a Prince 2 project management system or equivalent system.
- Provide a seamless and joined-up service to all residents who are being decanted.
- Provide oversight of any properties that have become temporary accommodation and monitor and work with the Local Authorities to ensure these tenures are being managed effectively.
- Ensure all projects are always delivered on time and to the highest standard with a safety-first focus.
- Forming strong internal relationships with key stakeholders to ensure the project team is aligned with the strategic objectives of the wider business.
- Liaise with other professionals and agencies around individual tenants ensuring they are receiving the appropriate support.
- Represent HfW and its work to people outside, and in particular developing and maintaining good contacts with the local authorities, and other agencies and service providers.
- Attend internal and external meetings to keep up to date with any changes in our field of work.

**Customer Service**
- Ensure that customer focus is at the heart of the services we provide, through the development and implementation of a robust performance framework to ensure customer and business needs are met.
- Ensure that a culture of continuous review and improvement is embedded within Housing & Customer Services and staff are empowered to be innovative and creative.
- Ensure we provide a quality, consistent service when responding to customer complaints and that are responses are in line with the Housing Ombudsman Complaints handling code.
- Ensure complaints are effectively recorded and managed with lessons learnt being captured and used to inform departmental service improvement plans.
- Liaise with the housing ombudsman to ensure we are providing all the necessary evidence to facilitate their investigations and ensure we capture any lessons from their determinations, and these are fed into departmental service improvement plans.
- Carry out meetings and consultations, e