Housing Review Officer (Project)

Job Description

Job Category : Housing
Location : Guildhall 2, Royal Borough of Kingston
Hours Per Week : 36.00
Start Date : Immediate Start
Start Time : 09:00
End Time : 17:00
Salary: £26.94

Housing Reviews Officer

Role purpose

The Council is focused on delivering the best possible outcomes for its communities. To do this the Council needs employees who thrive in an agile and networked organisation and who can support continuous improvement within a constructive organisational culture. The purpose of this role is therefore to:
● Be responsible for carrying out enquiries and completing reviews of applications made under Part 6 and 7 of the Housing Act 1996, as amended, ensuring that all decisions are legally robust and are issued within statutory guidelines.

Key activities

Customers and Partners
● Builds strong working partnerships across the public, private and voluntary sectors to enable the service to be delivered in an outcome-focused and efficient way
● Promotes community cohesion and Kingston’s commitment to valuing diversity, ensuring the development and implementation of effective social inclusion

Digital/New Ways of Working
● Continually looks for ways to improve and modernise our service to customers, including developing and implementing digital/automated processes and eliminating paper wherever possible.
● Champions the use of new technologies, particularly Google, to enable modern working practices to thrive.

Delivery

1. To carry out thorough enquiries and investigations of reviews and legal challenges under Part 6 and Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 (as amended), this includes s.202 and suitability reviews. Ensuring that decisions made are fully compliant with relevant legislation, up to date case law and policy, and are issued within targets and statutory timeframes.

Knowledge, including educational qualifications:
Extensive knowledge of local authority legal obligations under the Housing Act 1996, Part VII, Homelessness Act 2002 the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and the Homelessness Code of Guidance for Local Authorities.
A good knowledge of services, benefits and support available to applicants experiencing housing problems
A detailed understanding and application of the terms and conditions contained in the range of tenancy agreements across all tenures.
Experience:
Experience of carrying out s202 Reviews
Experience of responding to legal challenges, including pre-action protocols and judicial reviews.
Experience of producing clear, detailed and legally complaint letters.
Skills & Abilities
Excellent interpersonal skills including active listening and negotiating. Ability to work with others, and is motivated to achieve excellent performance.
Has the ability to understand and interpret assimilate complex case law, and to think creatively about problems and identify solutions and translate that information into innovation in practice and management.
Has excellent communication administration including the ability to write detailed case notes and technical letters and is able to produce reports and other information for a variety of audiences.
Ability to work unsupervised, prioritise workloads and achieve targets and deadlines
Recognises the role that that technology plays in improving the service and supports the team to fully utilise IT systems