Housing team leader

Job title	Housing team leader
Reports to	Head of Housing
Responsible for	Housing officers
Department	Housing & property services
Tenure	Permanent
Hours	Full time – 35 hours per week with flexibility to occasionally workoutside normal office hours to meet business needs
Salary	£35,786 to £37,786 depending on qualifications and experience
Location	Head Office with travel to various locations within Birmingham

Role purpose

To oversee your team’s delivery of a professional and effective general housing management and specific support services to residents over 60 or 55 with a disability living in our independent and supported living schemes and almshouse accommodation dispersed around the Birmingham area.

Key responsibilities

Supervision and leadership: Support the Head of Service in the ongoing strategic and operational development of the highest quality housing services and use a range of management tools and techniques to support officers to work compliantly, to the highest professional standards, and to the best of their ability and ambitions.

Compliance: Ensuring your team delivers the highest quality, effective general housing, neighbourhood management and tailored supported housing services in accordance with all relevant housing and property legislation and regulations.

Income management: Ensure your team maximises income to both the resident and the service by providing collaborative engagement and effective support to prevent debt, and by ensuring the robust operation of income management policies and strategies to recover current and former debts up to eviction level.

Conflict resolution: Oversee and guide the handling of neighbour disputes and reports of nuisance and anti-social behaviour effectively, ensuring officers are using all tools and powers available to solve problems firmly but fairly in accordance with policy and regulation, including:

Complaint resolution: Oversee and / or investigate the end-to-end handling of formal Stage 1 complaints, ensuring that complaints are appropriately identified, acknowledged and handled in strict accordance with regulation, to satisfactory outcomes.

Stakeholders and partners: Support the Head of Service in building and maintaining trusting and supportive collaborative relationships with our stakeholders and key partners, including Local Authority, National Health and third sector services to ensure that residents receive first class assistance and support to live as independently as possible.

Community engagement: Ensure that your team are invested in co-ordinating and recording meaningful resident engagement and involvement activity that promotes, health and well-being, and that matters affecting them and their tenancy or appointment, including policy and service development are consulted upon.

Support and safeguarding: Ensure that you and your team act with the highest levels of honesty and integrity always, proactively identifying and appropriately handling safeguarding issues as they arise, and supporting residents to live independently.

Record keeping and reporting: Ensure that you and your team prepare and maintain comprehensive and accurate records and reports that are always easily accessible and auditable. Take responsibility and accountability for reporting honestly on the performance of your team.

Main duties

1. Work closely with the Head of Service to assist in the development of strategic plans, projects and initiatives for the housing and property service, ensuring that they are clearly and effectively operationalised throughout the team.

2. Be responsible and accountable for the practical day-to-day operational management of a small team including organising and co-ordinating responsive day to day housing activity and productivity, including rotas and monitoring lone working systems. Managing leave and absence requests, authorising expenses claims and taking responsibility for first line performance management, including identification and trigger of sickness, disciplinary and capability policies.

3. Champion personal and professional development of the team through conducting regular one to ones and feeding back training and development needs and wants for planning in.

4. Support the Head of Housings responsibilities and accountabilities for providing a comprehensively compliant, yet person-centred housing and neighbourhood management service to adults over 55 with varied housing, health, disability, financial and wellbeing needs, living in supported and independent living schemes, and almshouse accommodation by:

5. Supervising and monitoring the team’s active role in the management of empty (void) properties, including and minimisation of former debts, rent loss and repair costs, ending tenancies & appointments compliantly, completing health & safety compliance checks, and ensuring that allocations and sign-ups are prompt and focussed on quality and sustainment.

6. Be responsible for operation of the BCOP Allocations Policy under Part VI of the Housing Act, including managing direct applications to BCOP for housing, the waiting list, suitability of accommodation, sustainable allocations and lettings and providing CORE statutory returns.

7. Deputise for the Head of Housing in the operation and performance of the nomination’s agreement with Birmingham City Council, including advertising properties using Choice

Based Lettings in accordance with the agreement, attending meetings, and providing statutory returns

8. Be responsible for the delivery of dynamic, risk-based support plans for every supported resident, ensuring that the team fully utilises multi agency and collaborative approaches to problem solving and meeting ongoing support needs, including promotion of our care homes as a suitable housing option.

9. Lead on and support officers in the management of tenancy breaches, including nuisance, anti-social behaviour, property condition and hoarding behaviours using all available tools and powers, including the ability to work with legal teams to represent the organisation at civil court proceedings

10. Ensure the team are effectively identifying and handling formal stage 1 complaints in accordance with regulation and policy, being able to support and guide officers in investigations through to satisfactory outcomes to that the Head of Service retains capacity to investigate stage 2 escalations and is supported in the event of regulatory interventions.

11. Assist with annual rent and service charge setting processes and be responsible and accountable for the operation and performance of the income management policy within the team, providing drive and support to the team in undertaking legal enforcement activities up to eviction level.

12. Ensure the team adopts a without fail approach to building and neighbourhood health and safety compliance activities, including but not limited to conducting property and neighbourhood inspections, assessing risk and being responsible for driving mitigating actions to resolution.

13. Liaise with operatives and contractors delivering onsite services, monitoring service levels and quality, raising any concerns appropriately with managers to ensure that residents get the best value for money for their chargeable services.

14. Liaise and co-operate with telecare contractors at all stages of service delivery as required, including advising of outgoing and incoming residents and responding effectively to reports from contractors when residents use their alarms to seek help and assistance.

15. Proactively identify and organise relevant and meaningful activities that support the social, health and wellbeing needs of engaged resident, including engaging residents in consultations and meetings about service delivery, policy changes or developments that affect them.

16. Always be responsible and accountable for the safeguarding of residents, identifying, recording and escalating concerns appropriately.

17. Follow all policy and procedure diligently, maintaining accurate and comprehensive contemporaneous records at all times within the housing management system, and being responsible for one’s own administration.

18. Be wholeheartedly committed to ongoing training and development, including attending training and development sessions, team meetings, appraisals and one to ones.

19. Always be responsible and accountable for the safe systems of work for yourself and others, including the use and operation of lone working systems

20. As part of a small but dynamic and agile team, be flexible in undertaking any other reasonable duties and functions commensurate with the grade of role from time to time, as directed or requested by the Head of Service.

Person specification

Qualifications, knowledge & experience	Essential (E) orDesirable (D)
Satisfactory general education at level 2 or above that is relevant tothe role	E
To have, be working towards, or capable / willing to work towards arelevant professional qualification (Minimum ClH L4)	E
While at least 12 months working in a senior or management rolewould be desirable A minimum of 3 years' experience delivering socialhousing services is essential, desirably with providing customersupport services to vulnerable residents. At least 12 months in asenior role would be desirable.	E (D)
In depth knowledge and understanding of relevant housing legislation,regulation and good practice is essential, desirably including thatspecifically for supported housing.	E (D)
Good understanding of the state welfare benefit system is essential,desirably in relation to older persons benefits.	E (D)
Ability to use all key IT systems and virtual meeting and messagingplatforms independently and effectively, including Ione workingsystems	E
Full valid UK driving license, with a suitably insured and roadworthyvehicle for use every working day	E
Experience of service improvement and development, includingconsultation and engagement.	D
Experience of contractor management	D
Experience of legal enforcement processes in a social housing setting,including attendance at Civil County Court hearings	D
Ability to speak a second language to English, including sign languageand / or interpretation services	D
Values & Behaviours
Trust & integrity. You are where you say you will be, at the right time,doing what you should be doing with upmost fairness, equity andintegrity, even when no one is watching.	E
Accountability. You take responsibility and accountability for yourdecisions and actions in relation to performing your role to the highestpossible standards. You make things happen and you act on feedbackto improve performance for yourself and the team.	E
Empathy, confidence and assertiveness. You can appreciate andaccept different points of view, wants and needs, and balance themconfidently and assertively with the need to deliver compliant andprofessional housing activities	E
Professional curiosity, collaboration & co-operation. You are curiousand look beyond the immediate issue to find underlying causes andlearning opportunities, bringing ideas forward to do or make things better and continuously improve systems of work through co-operationand collaboration	E