Job title: Deputy Housing Options Manager
Salary: PO4 £43,421.04 - £46,464.00
Hours: 37
Contract: Permanent
Location: Merrion House
As a Deputy Housing Options Manager you’ll thrive on applying your substantial experience of working in the homelessness sector and be able to contribute to the management of and strategic direction of the service.
Leeds City Council is one of the largest employers in the region with over 14,000 employees. We seek to recruit and develop talented individuals who embody our council values and ambitions .
About You
As a Deputy Housing Options Manager you will bring to the role:
- To contribute to the management of the Leeds Housing Options: the Council’s principal service offering housing advice to people who are homeless, at risk of homelessness and in other forms of housing need.
- To provide operational leadership to deliver a face to face, telephone and digital access based housing options service in accordance with homelessness, housing and other relevant legislation.
- To contribute to the strategic role relating to homelessness including the development and delivery of the city’s Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy.
- To manage the statutory review, paralegal and safeguarding functions at Leeds Housing Options.
About The Role
This an exciting opportunity to apply for a leadership role within a highly driven and successful service. The role would be working on the key strategic aims around the successful preventing and relieving of homelessness across the city.
The successful candidate will need to have excellent leadership, organisational and communication skills along with the ability to work individually and as part of a team.
You will need to be flexible in approach and be able to prioritise workloads look to improve the way we work and continually improve how we deliver our service to those we serve. You will need to be able to lead your team and support the Leeds Housing Options Manager to make a difference to the people of Leeds.
What We Offer You
We take pride in offering the best employee experience, with benefits including:
- a competitive salary and annual leave entitlement plus statutory holidays
- membership of the West Yorkshire Pension Fund with generous employer contributions
- flexible and hybrid working arrangements subject to service requirements
- a clear career pathway and continuing professional development opportunities
- a range of staff benefits to help you boost your wellbeing and make your money go further
How To Apply
Please complete the online application form.
Read our guidance for further advice. Please check your information carefully and ensure you complete all sections before submitting your application.
We welcome applications from everyone and actively seek a diverse range of applicants from all backgrounds and cultures. We particularly encourage applications from, but not limited to, women, carers, veterans as well as LGBT+, ethnically diverse, disabled and care experienced people.
This role is based in the UK. Home Office guidance states that candidates must evidence their right to work in the UK prior to commencing employment, either as a UK or Irish citizen, under the EU Settlement scheme or having secured any other relevant work visa.
If you do not have the right to work in the UK, you must consider your own eligibility for sponsorship for a particular role through the Skilled Worker visa route before applying. To be eligible for sponsorship you'll usually need to be paid the standard salary rate of at least £38,700 per year or meet one of the other eligibility criteria. Ensure you are eligible before applying.
Job Description
Job Purpose
To contribute to the management of the Leeds Housing Options: the Council’s principal service offering housing advice to people who are homeless, at risk of homelessness and in other forms of housing need. The role involves providing operational leadership to deliver a face to face, telephone and digital access based housing options service in accordance with homelessness, housing and other relevant legislation. The role also involves contributing to the strategic role relating to homelessness including the development and delivery of the city’s Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy. The post holder will manage the statutory review, paralegal and safeguarding functions at Leeds Housing Options.
Responsibilities
- Contribute to the delivery of an effective Housing Options Services that generates Value for Money and helps achieve wider Council priorities
- To use effective people management skills in order to motivate, develop and performance manage staff within your service area to drive service improvements.
- To contribute to the development and delivery of a Housing Options Service Plan in line with wider service, divisional, directorate and Council priorities
- To manage, promote and deliver positive solutions to achieving diversity and equality in all aspects of service delivery, community engagement and human resource areas, focussing on equality of outcome.
- To actively drive continuous improvement initiatives through leading and contributing to cross Council projects, collaborative working with partners and supporting Directorate and Divisional Management Teams.
- Contribute to maintaining effective communications relating to the Housing Options Service with staff, service users, councillors, trade unions, partners and other stakeholders.
- To work with elected members, service users and community representatives in ways which support open, inclusive, responsive and accountable government.
- Working as a team for Leeds by developing and maintaining good working relationships with internal and external customers, other stakeholders and partners to achieve excellent outcomes for the citizens of Leeds.
- To be accountable for the safety of staff, service users and contractors in accordance with Legislation and the Council Health and Safety Policy.
- To be actively involved in preparing, managing and controlling budgets and take responsibility where appropriate for assigned budgets.
- Demonstrate a flexible approach to working as required meeting Directorate and Corporate priorities.
- As a leader in the organisation with key people management responsibilities to undertake duties in relation to people management policies.
- To promote the ambitions and values of the Council with staff.
- To contribute to the management of the Council’s Housing Options Service offering a housing options service to people who are homeless, at risk of homelessness or in housing need
- To ensure that the Housing Options Service operates in accordance with all relevant homelessness, housing and other legislation
- To contribute to strategic development and delivery relating to homelessness including the city’s Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy
- To take a lead role on representing the Council at a range of external meetings and events
- To seek out best practice on all issues relating to the delivery of a Housing Options service
- To contribute to Housing Options Service offer to tackling rough sleeping, begging and other street based activity
- To take a lead role on managing the Council’s temporary accommodation duties
- To take a lead role on safeguarding priorities relating to homelessness and housing
- To take a lead role for managing the Paralegal service
- To take a lead role for managing the statutory review function
- Understanding of appraisal and evaluation techniques.
- Understanding of change management principles
- Working knowledge of programme and project management principles and best practice
- Significant knowledge of managing a Housing Options service
- Significant knowledge of issues relation to homelessness including the prevention of homelessness
- Significant understanding of homelessness, housing and other relevant law
- Understanding of wider housing priorities, services and systems and the Housing Options Service contributes to them.
- An understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the Directorate and other key agencies and stakeholders in the city.
- A detailed knowledge of key strategic plans including the Vision for Leeds and City Priority Plans and the Council’s planning framework.
- A working knowledge of the Council’s Values and Leadership and Management standards.
- Knowledge of Governance requirements and the Council’s policies and procedures that would apply to the Division and the wider Directorate.
- Knowledge of the Council’s decision-making processes.
Experience:
- Of working effectively with internal and external partners to lead strategic partnerships and programmes and deliver cross sector or cross service projects to achieve positive outcomes.
- Of communicating appropriately with a wide range of people, through a variety of different methods and gaining the commitment of a range of stakeholders/influencing views and behaviour to meet set objectives.
- Of developing services to meet continuously changing needs.
- Of managing the effective deployment and support of human resources.
- Of leading, coaching and motivating teams and individuals.
- Of managing in a political environment and working on politically sensitive issues.
- Of managing and controlling significant budgets and achieving budgetary targets.
- Of driving service improvement through the provision of advice, support and challenge.
- Of interpreting and analysing complex information and data.
- Of conducting Equality Impact Assessments.
- Of delivering effective consultation to support service design, delivery and evaluation.
- The duties outlined are not meant as an exhaustive list and will also comprise any other duties within the spirit of the post commensurate with the job evaluation outcome for this post.
Qualifications
Essential requirements It is essential that the candidate should be able to demonstrate the following criteria. Candidates will only be shortlisted if they can demonstrate that they meet all the essential requirements.
- Ability to provide visible and effective leadership which empowers, enables and develops staff to achieve results.
- Ability to identify and implement change programmes, improve service quality and support a culture that drives up standards and performance.
- Ability to communicate effectively to a variety of audiences at all levels, including presenting high level information and reports on complex issues in an appropriate way.
- Ability to lead the development of appropriate systems and procedures to enable effective data capture and analysis to inform service delivery.
- Ability to think creatively and to solve problems in a constructive way.
- Ability to manage complex programmes and projects and lead project teams.
- Ability to work to strict deadlines with conflicting priorities and to manage personal work and time effectively
- Ability to access and interpret local/national strategy and communicate this quickly and effectively to all interested parties
- Ability to make a contribution to the strategic direction of the Directorate, Division and services/functions.
Essential Behavioural And Other Characteristics
- Understand and embrace Leeds City Council Values and Behaviours and codes of conduct
- Committed to continuous improvement in all areas and work towards delivering the Best City Ambition of Health & Wellbeing, Inclusive Growth and Zero Carbon
- Be aware of and be able to understand and observe Leeds City Council policies.
- Carry out all duties having regard to an employee’s responsibility under Health and Safety.
- Willingness to actively participate in training and development activities
- Flexible and adaptable to change to assist other services as required commensurate to grade.
- Participate in appraisal, training, and development activities.
- Be aware of and support difference ensuring equality for all, working in an anti-discriminatory manner, upholding, equality & diversity.
- Recognise and appropriately challenge any incidents of racism, bullying, harassment, victimisation, and any form of abuse, reporting any concerns to the appropriate person
- The Council has adopted a flexibility protocol and the role will be expected to work within these parameters.
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