Head of Housing Policy, Performance and Service Improvement

Job Description

Discover yourself in Lewisham where what you do makes a difference to our vibrant and culturally diverse communities!

We have a rich history of welcoming people from all over the world and are proud to be recognised as the UK’s first Borough of Sanctuary, for our work in championing the rights of refugees and migrants.

Lewisham Council’s Housing Service is seeking a Head of Housing Policies, Performance and Service Improvement

What’s the role?

It’s an exciting time to join us. Lewisham is a fantastic place to live, work and visit – we have ambition, passion and a huge amount of potential. Our communities are dynamic, and our people are passionate, engaging and diverse. We are proud of how welcoming we are as the UKs first Borough of Sanctuary.

It’s also a challenging time for us, with significant financial pressure and increasing demand for our services. We are meeting this challenge head on, with a radical and bold change and service improvement agenda underway. We want to ensure that our residents and communities can benefit from, and contribute to, London’s future prosperity.

Here in the housing service directorate, we are passionate about our vision that everyone has a safe, stable and genuinely affordable home where they can live an independent and prosperous life. Working at the heart of the Housing Directorate and reporting to the Director of Housing Strategy, you will be responsible to the Director of Housing Strategy for the overall management of the Housing Policies, Performance and Service Improvement service.

This is a key leadership role that will work with the Directorate Extended Leadership Team to strengthen the Directorate policy, performance and service improvement activities to ensure they support delivery of the Housing Improvement Plan and drive change and improvement across the Directorate, bringing together our work to develop data capability, improve data reliability, promote the strategic use of insight and embed a performance culture rooted in transparency, collaboration and accountability.

We are ambitious, led by a dedicated Director of Housing Strategy who has a clear vision to deliver on our ambitions. This role is a critical part of that vision.

What’s in it for you?

Excellent training and development opportunities, plus a range of benefits including:

• Generous holiday allowance
• Local Government Pension scheme
• Flexible working and family friendly policies
• Season ticket and bicycle loans
• A range of staff discounts including local subsidised gym memberships
• Supportive staff network

What we’re looking for

We are looking for a unique skill set that is able to provide strategic direction for housing policies development, data, insight and performance management and the ability to lead service improvement and change initiatives. This role requires someone who can gain the confidence of the Extended Leadership Team across the landlord services, in housing needs and homelessness services and in the private sector licensing and enforcement services to help them drive change and deliver on our Housing Improvement Plan and the delivery of corporate objectives such as the Temporary Accommodation cost reduction programme.

This is an ambitious job with an ambitious future, operating in a challenging local and national environment. We are looking for our new post-holder who can demonstrate strong experience of policy development, data insight and performance management and service improvement to inspire a culture of innovation and to be relentless in the pursuit of delivering a high-quality, efficient and responsive service for our residents.

In return, we’ll offer excellent development opportunities, plus a range of benefits that includes a career average pension scheme, flexible working and the opportunity to make a real difference to our local community.

Location

Laurence House, Catford and working remotely.

Special conditions

• Hold Chartered Institute Housing (CIH) Level 5 qualification or be willing to work towards attaining it.

The recruitment process is anonymous and we don’t accept CV’s.

Applicant handbook- please read the guidance in this handbook when applying. It is essential that you complete the application fully and that your supporting statement covers how you meet each of the person specification criteria listed.

Please click here to view the Job Description and Person Specification

Salary

£79,629 to £86,121 per annum (SMG3)

N.B: All appointments will be offered at the minimum spinal column point (SCP) for the grade of the role. The only exception to this will be when matching current salary (up to the maximum of the scale), which is subject to evidential proof.

Diversity

Lewisham Council is a Disability Confident employer. We welcome and encourage job applications of all abilities. If you require any reasonable adjustments in the application or interview, please contact the lead contact on this advert. We will make reasonable adjustments to make sure our disabled applicants and those with health conditions are supported throughout our recruitment process. We support the access to work scheme, further details are available at www.gov.uk/access-to-work/apply

The Council has a dedicated employment support service, Lewisham Works, which offers Lewisham residents guidance in relation to applying for jobs. If you want to join Lewisham Works, please email JobsAndSkills@lewisham.gov.uk and an advisor will be in touch with you.

The Council reserves the right to close adverts early if there is a large response.

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