Head of Housing Solutions Independence and Rough Sleeping

About us at Hounslow

We'd love you to join us at the London Borough of Hounslow! Our people are deeply committed to providing excellent services to our residents, doing all we can to make lives as good as they can be.

We are an outstanding council, serving an outstanding borough. With brilliant, visionary leadership, a dynamic Cabinet and a can-do culture, we've built strong partnerships which have transformed how we serve one of London's most diverse boroughs. Hounslow is the world in one place and full of potential. We are stepping up for our residents like never before.

About our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

We live by five core values: Lead with Heart, Do New, Pass on the Power, Harness the Mix and Be a Rock. All our work has equality, diversity and inclusion at its very heart, best articulated in "Harness the Mix". It's about breaking down barriers between our parts and people and unlocking the problem-solving power of our amazing mix of minds. We serve a diverse community, we have a diverse workforce and we are committed to being an inclusive employer.

We work hard to create representation across our workforce and leadership community, we have thriving employee network groups and our learning and development programmes help us lead, model and breathe ways of working that eliminate inequality, inequity, injustice and bias.

As part of this and under our commitments as a Disability Confident Employer, we make reasonable adjustments to accommodate our candidates. There's space for you to tell us what you need within our application form.

Our Benefits

If you join us, you'll have access to a range of employee benefits. Read more about these here.

About The Role

This is an exciting opportunity to join our Homelessness, Independence and Preventative Services which adopts a preventative approach across the housing, health, and social care agendas. With new dynamic leadership at its helm, the Housing Directorate is pursuing a mandate to be the best local housing authority that delivers for its residents.

If you want to be a part of our new progressive leadership team, this is a unique opportunity for you as well as us, because we are interested in what you can bring to help us improve and develop our services for our customers. You will need to be energetic, enthusiastic and ready for a new and exciting challenge where every day is different. You will have relevant work-based experience, have a track record of putting service users at the heart of service delivery and want to continue to learn and develop your knowledge and skills.

About The Team You'll Be Working In

This is an exciting and busy role that is at the centre of the Councils response to homelessness. The service is developing and progressing our agenda to reduce the use of temporary accommodation and achieve more upstream prevention outcomes.

1. You directly line manage Service Managers and through them a range of Assistant Service Managers and Advisers covering statutory and non-statutory homelessness and prevention services.
2. This is a key Head of Service position within the Housing Directorate, leading our Housing Solutions, Independence, and Rough Sleeping Services.
3. You will be responsible for a service that makes a real difference to the lives of people who are homeless or at risk of losing their homes.
4. You will work alongside other Heads of Services, reporting to the Assistant Director for Homelessness, Independence and Preventative Services (HIPS) to support and lead aspects of our huge improvement programme.

About You

1. You have extensive knowledge and experience of the Housing Act 1996 (as amended) and the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, working with vulnerable people, and experience of leading multi-disciplinary housing teams and work involving complex needs and diverse client groups and an expert knowledge of homelessness and associated legislation.
2. You are a dynamic leader driving continuous improvement to a first class, modern and flexible prevention focussed service to a wide range of residents.
3. You have extensive experience and consistent achievement at a senior management level in an organisation of comparable scope and complexity, working to continuously improve services for vulnerable people.
4. You are experienced in leading, motivating and managing services with multi-disciplinary teams to achieve consistently high standards and deliver strategic objectives, policies and value for money services through effective service planning.
5. Your excellent interpersonal skills will mean that you are able to be supportive and motivating as you lead and inspire, empowering your teams and colleagues whilst being clear and firm about performance and service delivery.
6. You are an expert communicator who has extensive experience of developing excellent relationships with key partners. You take personal responsibility to obtain and maintain trust of a wide range of stakeholders, including residents, internal departments, external agencies, government departments.
7. You are a critical thinker with innovative and creative problem solving skills that achieve the strategic objectives of the council, while managing and minimising risk across the service and effectively implement a preventative ethos in the areas of housing, health and social care.
8. You have high personal integrity with a respect for the dignity and confidentiality of others. You will be committed to equal opportunities and understanding how the service needs to adapt to improve accessibility.
9. You are self-motivated, highly organised and analytical with an attention to detail, able to review budgets, data and identify trends and make appropriate decisions.
10. It is desirable that you have a degree or equivalent qualifications. You have demonstrable work experience and can evidence continual professional development.
11. You can travel independently around the Borough to meet other professionals in community settings.
12. Are you passionate about customer services?
13. Are you an experienced homelessness professional with an excellent grasp of housing legislation?
14. Are you looking to working in a forward thinking and progressive housing department?
15. Are you a visible leader adept at managing high volumes of work involving vulnerable residents.

If the points above resonate with you, we would like to hear from you.

Read more about the work you'll be doing in the Role Profile

Essential:

Basic DBS is required for the role.

When Interviews Will Be Held And Who To Contact:

The key information you need about the role should be in the Role Profile, but if you have any further questions about the role, please contact:

Email:

Interviews for this job will be held November 2024.

Closing date: 15th November 2024

To apply, please click "Apply Now".