Housing Triage Officer/Admin

What's involved with this role: Temporary Housing Triage Officer/Admin Job Ref: WNC (HQ) 18315 Pay Rate: Up to £16.92 per hour PAYE depending on experience Hours per week: 37 Monday – Friday, normal working hours Role Length: This opening assignment is for 3 months City: Northampton The purpose of the role is to be the first point of contact in a customer focused front line Housing Solutions Service providing timely and sometimes immediate housing advice to customers on a range of housing options, providing information, guidance and signposting on available benefits and services. Key Responsibilities: Provide homelessness prevention advice to customers on housing options including social housing, shared ownership, other forms of low-cost home ownership, disabled adaptations, family mediation, supported housing and how to access private rented housing e.g. rent deposit schemes, discretionary housing payments, homeless prevention fund and charitable support.
Co-ordinate and provide responses to all housing need & housing options queries including emails, housing register correspondence, phone calls, temporary accommodation queries and resettlement queries.
Ascertain whether a household should apply to join the Council’s Housing Register or if there is a risk of homelessness and make referrals to the Housing Solutions Team if the household is at risk of homelessness within 56 days.
Make timely and accurate records of all action in relation to client casework and to ensure client files on the IT system are clear, up to date and comprehensive. To follow case management procedures and processes ensuring the correct standards are followed.
Assess and respond to all referrals received under the ‘Duty to Refer’ arrangements, ensuring that appropriate advice and support is provided, or the referral is escalated to Housing Solutions Team.
Maintain an extensive, up-to-date, in-depth knowledge of housing allocations and homelessness legislation, codes of guidance, case law and share learning with colleagues to ensure that the Council meets its relevant statutory obligations towards households approaching the service in terms of opportunity to join the Council’s Housing register and/or any homelessness duties owed to them.
Work with other Council services and external voluntary and statutory bodies to identify housing need and ensure that the Council’s Housing Allocations Policy and/or homelessness legislation is applied correctly to meet need. Key stakeholders include Children’s Trust, Adult Social Care, Probation and Police.
Maximise personal productivity, minimise duplication and errors; and manage our information efficiently and securely to reduce risk, though effective use of Office 365 and our internal IT systems and applications.
Actively challenge and seek to eliminate any directly or indirectly discriminatory practice or behaviours. NB: Please feel free to apply to us direct via [email protected] by quoting the job reference and job title exactly. To help speed up the process of uploading your CV to the client we would suggest that you send us your CV in Word format (or equivalent) if possible, rather than as a PDF. If you are successful in securing this role, please note that for the entire duration of this contract, regardless of extension you will be working this role at the PAYE rate that has been advertised. For absolute clarity, we only work on a PAYE basis, rather than entertaining umbrella pay terms, we do not offer Ltd/umbrella or outside IR35 rates. If you wish to understand PAYE vs Umbrella more, please let us know and we can send you some additional information for clarity. Due to the number of CVs being sent to us under current market conditions, we cannot, unfortunately, respond to all applications. If, therefore, you have not heard from us within 3 days please make a working assumption that you have not been shortlisted on this occasion. We will, however, be very happy to receive future applications from you for other roles. Please quote the Job Title & Vacancy Reference No. in your application, or we will be unable to match your CV to the role being applied for. Other “Essential Requirements” – Please check to ensure that your CV addresses the following items: Unless the DBS requirement stated above is for a Basic Disclosure, your DBS must be either through us or be accompanied by a subscription to the DBS updating service. Qualifications: Good general education with minimum GCSE C or equivalent in English and Maths, or equivalent. Skills & Experience: Minimum of 12 months recent experience in a similar role, or context and ideally within a public sector organisation.
Experience of working in a housing, customer service and advocacy and advice setting.
Experience of using housing allocations and homelessness case management systems.
Extensive experience of managing and handling sensitive data and information in line with Data Protection processes and regulations.
A working knowledge and understanding of current housing law, such as the Housing Act 1996, Parts VI and VII, Homelessness Act 2002, Localism Act 2012, Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 and immigration law as it applies to housing eligibility, relevant code of guidance and case law.
Excellent communication skills – ability to convey information accurately, tact, diplomacy, and the ability to deal with a range of customers with differing needs.
Ability to accurately record and maintain sensitive information relating to an individual’s personal housing circumstances.
Strong IT skills including Microsoft packages or equivalent (e.g. G Suite). S 1 Job Ref: WNC (HQ) 18315 Anticipated Length of Assignment: Unless otherwise stated (we do carry the occasional permanent vacancy) all of our roles are technically temporary, though opening assignments can be and often are, extended by clients on a longer term basis and can sometimes become permanent. Please do try to resist contacting us with requests for progress updates. We really do read every CV sent to us. All applications will be acknowledged by a human, not a robot, provided the job remains live and provided your CV meets the “Essential Requirements” listed. Please note that we do our level best to take down ads as soon as roles have been filled. We are not in the business of harvesting CVs. Important: We will interpret your application as being permission to submit your CV to this role (with the right to represent you) unless you advise us to the contrary.