Purpose of the job
The Housing Options Service is a very busy environment and faces several challenges to meet the housing needs of citizens of Melton. Changes within the last 12 months have enabled a new role of a Senior Housing Options Officer to be created to provide additional expertise and support to the Strategic Lead, Supporting Communities.
The Team are responsible for the delivery of the following service functions:
- Provision of the statutory homeless service
- Provision of temporary accommodation
- Management of the housing register
- Allocation of council housing
By becoming part of a Team who are focused on preventing households from becoming homeless, as well as providing tailored support and interventions when someone does become homeless, this is a fantastic opportunity to make a real difference to some of the most vulnerable people in our borough.
What is the job role?
An exciting opportunity has become available within the Housing Options team.
As a Senior Housing Options Officer, you’ll be responsible for supporting the Council to carry out homelessness duties under The Housing Act 1996, as amended by the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. You will be responsible for line management of 2 x housing options officers, a triage and allocations officer and housing options support officer whilst maintaining a caseload of clients.
You will have oversight of use of temporary accommodation, of all homeless cases and assist officers with points of legislation when required. In this fast-paced service area, you will need to be creative, adaptable, and hardworking in order to prevent homelessness and provide excellent case management services to our customers.
The main duties of this role include:
- Providing line management responsibility to housing options officers, the triage and allocation officer and housing options support officer.
- Conducting case sampling of homeless and housing register cases and report on findings.
- Completing assessments with customers who are homeless or threatened with homelessness.
- Making decisions in line with homelessness legislation and communicating to applicants in writing.
- Mediating between applicants and landlords.
- Working on a rota basis to cover front line homelessness functions.
About You
The successful candidate will be customer focused, be organised and have a thorough understanding of homeless legislation. You will also fully understand the difficulties faced by people facing homelessness and have a proactive attitude tor evolving difficult situations. You will be a team player but confident to work independently and have a flexible attitude to working under pressure. We are looking for an individual with a positive outlook and a desire to deliver a quality service to the community we serve.
A thorough working knowledge of the Microsoft Office Suite of applications is key and you will have a good working knowledge of excel. You must be able to maintain and update electronic information systems in accordance with data protection regulations.
This role reports directly to the Strategic Lead, Supporting Communities and will be part of our wider Housing and Communities team.
At Melton Borough Council we are continually looking at how we can improve our service and processes and want someone to help us to deliver it!
Working for Melton BC provides an excellent range of benefits and family friendly working policies. These include flexi-time with no core hours, agile working arrangements which enables multi-site and home working, generous leave entitlement, a full week off at Christmas, Local Authority Pension Scheme and a clear commitment to your continued professional development.
We look forward to hearing from you if you are looking for the chance to work for a forward thinking Council and make a real difference to the people of Melton and surrounding areas.
You can find out more about this role by viewing the full job description below.
This post requires a DBS Check.
We guarantee an interview to anyone who is a reservist, veteran or has a disability and meets the criteria for the role
Closing Date: Noon, Monday 27 January 2025
Interviews Held: w/c 3 February 2025
If you would like an informal chat, please do not hesitate to get in touch with:
Rachel Chubb - Strategic Lead Supporting Communities
Telephone: (01664) 502510
Email: rchubb@melton.gov.uk
Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme
Disability Confident
About Disability Confident
A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to Disability Confident .