Vacancy Description

Are you looking for the next step in your career? If so, we have a fantastic opportunity for you.

We are recruiting two Housing Options and Allocations Assistants to join the Council’s Housing Service.

The Council’s Housing Options Service works with households who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. There are several teams within the service including the Housing Options Team who work to prevent households from becoming homeless and to help those who are homeless to find new accommodation, the Allocations Team who manage the Council’s housing register and allocations and the Rough Sleeping Intervention Team who engage with rough sleepers to support them through a three stage rehabilitative pathway. Anyone can become homeless. as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic hundreds of thousands of people have lost their employment and as a result are finding it harder to make their mortgage and rental commitments.

The Housing Service provides advice and assistance to these households on anything from welfare benefit support and dealing with debt, to addressing substance misuse, accessing health care and escaping domestic abuse.

As a Housing Options and Allocations Assistant no two days will be the same but you might be involved in:

• Assisting the Housing Options Officers and Accommodation Officers to provide members of the public with general housing and homelessness advice, this is likely to be on the phone but may also be face-to-face.
• Supporting the team by completing referrals for customers to the appropriate agencies, accommodation providers and contacting landlords or other organisations.
• Assisting the Housing Options Officers and Accommodation Officers by contacting customers obtain information such as identification, bank statements, proof of address and medical information.
• Supporting customers who are living in emergency temporary accommodation to complete an online housing register application.
• Helping to gather information to support the response to written and verbal housing enquiries from the public, other Council staff, statutory agencies and other bodies within corporate timescales.
• Assisting officers with the rehousing of clients by searching for properties within the social and private rented sectors. This will include maintaining a list of availability and could include liaising with landlords about potential tenants.
• Participating in the Housing Options Duty phone rota, answering phone calls and directing enquiries to the relevant team.
• Liaising with internal and external agencies to set up meetings, draft meeting agendas and take minutes.

In return, we offer a range of benefits and are committed to providing our staff with a wide range of learning and development opportunities; in support of their personal and professional development.

If you believe that you have what we are looking for, and have an interest in working for a team which makes a real difference to the lives of people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, we would love to hear from you.

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead council is geographically set in a major tourism area with tourist attractions including Windsor Castle, Legoland and Ascot Racecourse. As a Royal Borough with the Royal Family on the doorstep, it is a desirable place to live and work. There are excellent transport connections to London (30 minutes by train) from Maidenhead with the Town Hall being a ten-minute walk from the train station.

For an informal discussion about this role, please contact Lindsay Megson, Housing Operations Manager, by email Lindsay.Megson@RBWM.gov.uk

Closing date: 13 June 2021

Interviews: 17 June 2021

Further information on this vacancy

• Job Description/Person Specification