Housing Options Assistant Manager

The Housing Options service provides the statutory homelessness function within the Council which aims to provide high quality housing advice services to customers facing the threat of homelessness including the prevention of homelessness and rough sleeping to its citizens within the District.

Are you a leader? Can you deliver change? Do you have what it takes to provide an excellent customer service to customers with housing needs and who are facing homelessness? Then this is the job for you!

Lancaster City Council is currently seeking a dynamic, enthusiastic, experienced Housing Options Assistant Manager to manage a staff team and oversee the day-to-day operational delivery of the housing options service ensuring the Council's statutory functions are met and high customer standards are achieved. The Housing Options Team continues to achieve reductions in statutory homelessness, successful in the prevention of homelessness and just recently Lancaster City Council was successful in 3 rounds of central government funding to address rough sleeping.

The successful candidate will be required to manage, review and improve the performance of the Housing Options Team ensuring the service is relevant, cost effective and customer focused. The successful candidate will also ensure that the Council's statutory duties under the homelessness legislation are correctly determined and administered, including undertaking reviews of homelessness decisions. To be successful in this role you will have management and leadership skills that inspire and empower others to go above and beyond, to do things differently, to try and test new ways of working, to drive system change needed to bring about an end to homelessness and rough sleeping., At Lancaster City Council we aim to have a diverse workforce that is representative of the district that we serve, and provide a working environment where each employee feels able to bring their whole self to work. We welcome applications from all sections of our community and provide several supportive and inclusive workplace networks and safe spaces for employees to feel connected. Our workplace wellbeing strategy drives our commitment to staff wellbeing initiatives and ensuring that our organisation is a great place to work for all.

You will have extensive experience of managing a housing options team and working with key partners to prevent homelessness. Your excellent communication, negotiation and collaboration skills mean you have the ability to present confidently and authoritatively to a variety of audiences, bringing even those with potentially competing priorities and agendas along with you on the journey. You are a creative and solution focused thinker.

The successful candidate must be able to evidence the requirements laid out in the Job Description.

A full current UK driving licence is essential, as the post holder will be required to travel around the district and respond to emergencies. As a result you will be required to sign up to the authorised external DVLA driving licence validation organisation that we use to manage and monitor our employees driving licence data., You will identify with our organisational values of Pride, Ownership, Working Together and Ambition., 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.

This post is permanent. The hours of work for this position are 37 per week working Monday to Friday however you will be required to undertake Standby duties to cover out of hours work on a rota basis. This post is based at both Morecambe & Lancaster Town Hall but will be required to work from other locations across the district.

The Council currently operates an excellent Flexible Working Hours Scheme which applies to this post. Subject to the needs of this business, this may allow employees to work between the hours of 6:00am-10:30pm., Lancaster is a great place to work, as well as being part of something special you will also benefit from:

Generous annual leave allowance
Local Government Pension Scheme
A range of employee benefits including discounted gym membership, cycle to work scheme, the opportunity to purchase extra time off, as well as discounts on days out, activities and retail.

Lancaster City Council has unanimously declared a climate emergency and will therefore work towards reducing carbon emissions to net-zero by 2030. As part of this role, you will be expected to participate and work towards reducing both carbon emissions and the impacts of climate change.