Temporary Accommodation - Visiting Officer

About the Borough

Found in zone 6 with good transport links in and out of London, Kingston is a vibrant and diverse university town which creates the rich sense of community shared across the borough and its Residents. Kingston boasts an idyllic riverside location, good shopping and great restaurants, as well as a mix of modern and historic town centre. Kingston has lots of open parklands and cycle routes that help connect the district town centres into an enjoyable place to live and work.

We are passionate about working closely with our residents and vulnerable groups to help them maintain their independence and create a balance between support and independent living.

About the Service and Team

The Community Housing Directorate of Place is committed to providing excellent customer service and achieving the best outcomes for our residents. We work collaboratively with internal and external partners to deliver effective housing solutions and support vulnerable individuals and households. This role has a significant impact on customers, ensuring their welfare and housing situation, and is key to achieving year-on-year reductions of households in temporary accommodation..

About the Role and Our Ideal Candidate

To proactively engage with and support households who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, including those in Temporary Accommodation, by visiting them in their homes to identify their most likely route to re-housing in settled accommodation.

The successful candidate will be expected to:

• Work intensively with households, including home visits, to establish their route to settled accommodation.
• Support households in accessing move-on options such as qualifying offers, private rented sector access, and supported housing.
• Liaise with other parts of the service to identify suitable private rented accommodation.
• Advise clients on how to source accommodation themselves and available assistance.
• Undertake holistic assessments of needs, including financial assessments.
• Use a range of resources and tools to support the move-on process.
• Undertake procedures for housing customers into private rented sector and other accommodation types, ensuring compliance with statutory requirements.
• Support and advise service users on housing register applications and providing information for Housing Act 1996 (Part Vii) applications.
• Build relationships with clients to manage expectations and identify support needs for sustaining future accommodation.
• Work with other agencies involved in care and resettlement to ensure residents sustain temporary housing and move to settled housing.
• Undertake home visits to verify applicant's residence and housing needs for Housing Solutions Team and Housing Register investigations.
• Manage caseloads and data, monitoring delivery of targets.
• Capture, record, and provide relevant data and outcomes monitoring.
• Maintain a thorough understanding of relevant legislation, including Housing Act 1996, Homeless Reduction Act 2017, Children’s Act, Care Act, HHSRS, landlord and tenant legislation, benefits, welfare rights, immigration, asylum, matrimonial and family law.
• Develop and maintain knowledge and skills around safeguarding issues and raise concerns appropriately.

About You

We are seeking an individual with:

Essential Qualifications, Experience, Skills and Abilities:

• Knowledge and understanding of the housing and support needs of vulnerable tenants.
• Knowledge of repairing and health and safety obligations relating to temporary accommodation.
• Knowledge of housing benefit (Local Housing Allowance), Discretionary Housing Payments, income benefits, and assistance to residents in managing arrears repayment and debt management.
• Knowledge of safeguarding requirements.
• Knowledge of housing options available to households to prevent homelessness.
• Experience of working in a busy, frontline public housing service or similar.
• Experience of dealing with a diverse and vulnerable clientele face-to-face.
• Experience of working in a pressurized and high-profile environment within a multidisciplinary team.
• Experience of the application and administration of welfare benefits, Housing Benefit, and other related payments.
• Experience of using different IT systems to manage caseloads and monitor targets.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, including active listening and negotiating.
• Customer service focused.
• Ability to think, plan, and act with a creative approach to problem-solving.
• Ability to work unsupervised, prioritize workloads, and achieve targets and deadlines.
• An excellent knowledge of negotiation and mediation techniques and their practical application.
• Ability to question and challenge ways of working, with an understanding of the bigger picture.
• Demonstrate agility and adaptability in mindset and ways of working.
• Ability to work successfully with key stakeholders within and outside of the Council.
• Commitment to own personal and professional development.
• Demonstrate innovation and creativity.
• Actively engage in positive cross-organizational communications and team working.
• Communicate clearly, confidently, and appropriately with colleagues.

Special Conditions of Recruitment:

• Must be able to undertake all physical tasks associated with conducting property/site visits.

Our Offer to You

As an organisation that values and nurtures talent, we’re committed to helping you fulfil your potential and will offer you a supportive, friendly and collaborative environment to grow and develop your career and skills. We’re constantly striving to improve our ways of working so putting your ideas across however big or small; will be fully encouraged and supported by your colleagues and our dynamic and experienced management team.

Employees have access to a wide range of benefits to enable staff to achieve a work life balance, some of which include:

• A generous annual leave entitlement of 25-32 days, plus bank holidays (pro-rata if part-time working hours apply) depending on service and grade.
• Enhanced Maternity, Paternity, shared parental, adoption and dependents leave
• Three volunteering days per year in Kingston
• Hybrid working (dependent on the role)
• Flexible and agile working arrangements using Google Chromebooks
• Learning and development portal offering a range of courses
• Discounts on a range of local shops, restaurants, gyms and leisure centres
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Local Government Pension Scheme
• Bicycle loan facilities and cycle to work scheme
• Zip car scheme
• Confidential health & wellbeing and counselling support

Application Process

Apply online outlining what skills, abilities and experience you can bring which makes you an ideal candidate for this role. Please refer to the requirements outlined in the job profile when completing your application and check your CV details have been uploaded correctly in the relevant sections.

We understand and recognise the benefits of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the workplace and are embracing AI where appropriate, to boost our productivity and streamline how we deliver our Council services efficiently; to provide the best possible outcomes for our residents and communities.
However, we reserve the right to reject applications where it is apparent that AI-generated content has been used in isolation and without personalised responses. At Kingston we value authenticity and are looking for individuals who can clearly demonstrate their own skills, experience and motivation for the role that they are applying for and embrace and demonstrate our STAR values.
Here at Kingston we have core values of Transparency and this is to be demonstrated during the application process and completion of the supporting statement and will be further tested at interview and selection stage for those who progress forward.

The closing date is given as a guide. We reserve the right to close this vacancy once a sufficient number of applications has been received, it is strongly advised that you complete and submit your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

As part of our award winning Diversity Programme we anonymise all applications received to reduce conscious and unconscious bias enabling every application to be reviewed on the knowledge, skills and experience shown in your application. We encourage our interview panels to be as diverse as possible (age, cultural, neurodiverse etc.) to reduce bias where possible. We are fully committed to removing barriers and enhancing the diversity of our workforce.

Additional Information

We are proud to be a diverse and welcoming Borough and we strive to create a workforce which reflects the community we serve, and instil a sense of belonging in our staff. We celebrate and respect differences and appreciate the value of having a diverse workforce, therefore we welcome applications from under represented groups.

To support our workers and their families we offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, staff engagement forums and inclusive staff networks who help drive our diversity agenda.

We are also proud to be a disability confident employer and guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum essential criteria for a role. As an accredited London Living Wage Employer all our employees are guaranteed the London Living Wage regardless of their length or type of contract.

The UK has a points-based immigration system affecting EU and Non-EU workers and sponsorship requirements. We advise checking the GOV.UK website for right to work guidance. Sponsorship availability varies and is subject to eligibility requirements and budget limitations. As a result, we cannot guarantee sponsorship for all roles and will evaluate sponsorship requests on a case-by-case basis.