Housing Assessments Officer

Buckinghamshire Council; Aylesbury; On-site; GBP 32,000 - 42,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working

Employee Assistance Programme

Mental Health First Aiders

Discounts: cafés/restaurants/shops

Costco membership

Gym membership discounts

Travel discounts (Arriva)

Pension scheme

Job summary

Buckinghamshire Council is seeking a Housing Assessment Officer to deliver statutory homelessness and housing advice services across the Communities directorate. You will manage relief and final duty decisions, update Housing Plans, and support households in Temporary Accommodation toward sustainable outcomes.

The role requires proactive collaboration with colleagues, external partners, and welfare agencies to safeguard vulnerable customers, conduct risk assessments and manage complex caseloads

Qualifications

• Provide statutory homelessness and housing advice.
• Conduct risk assessments and manage complex caseloads.
• Work with external partners, police, government welfare agencies, and internal stakeholders to safeguard vulnerable customers.

Responsibilities

• Deliver homelessness relief duties and housing assessments.
• Update personalised Housing Plans.
• Make decisions on duty owed by the Council during applications.
• Support households in Temporary Accommodation toward sustainable housing solutions.

Skills

Customer service

Risk assessment

Stakeholder liaison

Policy development

Education

Law degree (optional)

Job description

Are you passionate about making a difference in your community? We are looking for a dedicated and compassionate Housing Assessment Officer to join our newly restructured team. In this role, you will provide a statutory homelessness and housing advice service, supporting households in the relief stage or final duty of a statutory homelessness assessment. You will be responsible for fulfilling statutory duties under the Housing Act, including actions to relieve homelessness, updating personalised Housing Plans, and making decisions on what duty is owed by the Council during the course of managing an application. Additionally, you will support households in Temporary Accommodation to move on to sustainable housing solution. You will work closely with senior officers and managers to deliver an efficient, front-line service that aligns with the Council's vision, core values, and strategic priorities. As a Homeless Assessment Officer, you will deliver a comprehensive, customer-focused, and high-quality service tailored for a diverse client group, including vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals and households. Your role will involve conducting risk assessments, managing complex personal caseloads, and providing authoritative advice and support to customers, external partners, police, government welfare agencies, and internal and external stakeholders to ensure the welfare of vulnerable customers. Our Communities directorate works across the county to deliver a number of the key customer-facing services that our residents, businesses and visitors rely on every day. This directorate includes a wide range of services, including:

• collecting and disposing of waste and recycling
• maintaining our roads and Rights of Way network and parking
• ensuring the delivery of school transport, and supporting sustainable travel including public bus services and School Crossing Patrollers
• managing Country Parks
• leisure facilities, museums, theatres and libraries, as well as developing our Cultural Strategy
• Licensing, Environmental Health and Trading Standards
• Cemeteries and Crematoria

The customer is central to how we develop and deliver all of these services, which help promote our rich and vibrant culture and special environment. We are looking for enthusiastic, ambitious and committed individuals to join our team and help us to continue to make Buckinghamshire a great place to live, work and visit. This is an exciting time for us as we bring together the services previously run by five separate councils before Buckinghamshire Council was created. Whilst making major changes to contracts affecting residents across Bucks, we continue to focus on delivering great customer service. You will join us on our journey of continuous improvement - whether that's through developing strategies and ways of working or delivering services on the ground, every person in Communities is a valued member of the team.

We are looking for someone who can work proactively with colleagues and other stakeholders to increase efficiency, improve service delivery, and embed multi-agency working. You will also assist with strategy and policy development and support innovative ways of working to foster a continuous improvement mindset within the service. If you are committed to delivering excellent customer service and have a passion for helping those in need, we would love to hear from you! Although not essential, we would be particularly interested in candidates with a Law degree or a keen interest in applying Statutory Law.

Buckinghamshire Council is a relatively new organisation that combines the strengths and expertise of the previous five councils in the county to create positive change for local people, communities, and businesses. We are firmly focused on the future and have made a clear commitment to serve residents better and to provide stronger representation for Buckinghamshire, both locally and nationally.

We have a set of values, which our employees have chosen, that represent what we are - Proud, Ambitious, Collaborative and Trustworthy.

By joining Buckinghamshire Council, you can expect:

• a fair and inclusive culture
• the chance to really make a difference to those around you
• health and well-being initiatives including an Employee Assistance Programme, Mental Health First Aiders and mindfulness workshops
• a unified voice through our Employee Representative Group
• ongoing support, and the opportunity to develop and progress in your career with us
• opportunities to take part in fun activities such as fundraising and social events

At Buckinghamshire Council, we know that our biggest strength comes from the people that work for us, and that's why we're working hard to ensure we continue to be an accessible and inclusive organisation. From dedicated staff networks overseen by our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Steering Group, to proudly standing as a Disability Confident employer, it's important to us that all our colleagues feel engaged, listened to, and valued. Our offer of flexible working empowers a productive and happy workforce and allows employees to combine work with other responsibilities and commitments. We believe our workforce should reflect the diverse communities we service in Buckinghamshire, and are looking for like-minded individuals to join us in promoting equality, fairness, and inclusion for everyone.

Hard work and success deserves recognition. That's why we pride ourselves on the benefits we give our people. We actively encourage a good work-life balance and promote flexible and agile working arrangements. We provide discounts on various Cafés, restaurants, shops and auto enrolment onto our generous Pension Scheme. In addition to the opportunity to gain membership to Costco, we have discounted gym memberships, travel discounts with Arriva and much more.