Place Officer

London Borough of Waltham Forest; New Addington; On-site; GBP 26,000 - 36,000; Full time

Job summary

London Borough of Waltham Forest is seeking a Place Officer to inspect estates and manage action plans to ensure clean, safe and well-maintained communal areas for council tenants and leaseholders.

The role is largely on-site, focused on building strong relationships with residents and partners, delivering a full range of estate services, and identifying improvement opportunities for our blocks and estates. This is a 12-month maternity cover post.

Qualifications

• Experience in Housing, ideally Estate Management.
• Ability to lone work in the community.
• Proficient user of IT - including good working knowledge of Microsoft 365 applications.
• Good recording keeping skills.
• Must be able to travel to different locations within the Borough.
• Physical requirement - Manage walking and stairs daily as part of inspections and site visits.
• Occasional attendance at evening meetings, satisfactory references and identity checks; DBS check.

Responsibilities

• Provide effective, responsive and visible frontline service for communal area matters relating to a designated area.
• Complete site visits and inspections of estates, blocks, car parks, garages and open spaces.
• Collaborative and solution-based working with service areas for estate management issues.
• Complete, update and review Action Plans for each block/estate regularly.
• Ensure monthly KPIs are met to ensure performance targets are achieved.
• Respond to Fire Risk Assessment actions.
• Ensure correspondence and interactions with residents are documented and recorded on the relevant systems.
• Proactive approach to identifying opportunities to improve our blocks/estates.

Skills

Estate management experience

lone working

IT proficiency

record keeping

Tools

Microsoft 365

Job description

The role of a Place Officer is crucial for customer satisfaction - by looking after our estates and communal areas, we can create communities that people are proud to live in. The role is a blend of completing inspections and managing action plans to provide the highest quality service for our tenants. The Place Officer is part of a team of trained professionals to provide an effective and customer focused estate safety and improvement service. They support and assist residents to comply with the terms of their tenancy and lease agreement, building strong customer relations to increase satisfaction with their home and local environment. They will also aid in the development of customers being active members of their community. This is achieved by delivering high levels of customer satisfaction to council tenants and leaseholders for the managed services, building safe communities with proactive and consistent service delivery. We do this by ensuring our blocks, estates, car parks, garages and parks are reaching the standard set by Waltham Forest in terms of the standard of cleaning and ground maintenance, as well as ensuring the area has no health and safety or fire safety issues by raising the necessary repairs. The successful candidate will be responsible for building strong relationships with our residents and partners delivering a full range of support to ensure our estates are clean and safe for our residents, as well as identifying opportunities to improve estates and the provision of services. The Place Officer is to be out on-site the majority of their time conducting inspections, processing inspection data and providing a reactive response to communal area matters as they arise. This is a fixed-term position to provide maternity cover, anticipated to last for 12 months. However, applicants should be aware that the duration of the contract may be subject to change. In the event that the employee currently on maternity leave decides to return to work earlier than originally indicated, the contract may be terminated with appropriate notice in accordance with the terms of employment. We are a Home Office-licensed sponsor; however, for this specific role we are not able to provide Skilled Worker visa sponsorship. To be considered, you must already hold a form of UK work authorisation that does not require sponsorship.

• Provide effective, responsive and visible frontline service for communal area matters relating to a designated area
• Complete site visits and inspections of estates, blocks, car parks, garages and open spaces.
• Collaborative and solution-based working with service areas for estate management issues
• Complete, update and review Action Plans for each block/estate regularly
• Ensure monthly KPIs are met to ensure performance targets are achieved
• Respond to Fire Risk Assessment actions.
• Ensure correspondence and interactions with residents are documented and recorded on the relevant systems, within the designated timeframe
• Proactive approach to identifying opportunities to improve our blocks/estates.

For the full list of duties and responsibilities please view the role profile., To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy. We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. For more information on the benefits of working for the Council, please visit .

Requirements

• Experience in Housing, ideally Estate Management
• Ability to lone work in the community
• Proficient user of IT - including good working knowledge of Microsoft 365 applications
• Good recording keeping skills
• Must be able to travel to different locations within the Borough
• Physical requirement - Manage walking and stairs daily as part of inspections and site visits
• Occasional attendance at evening meetings, Satisfactory employment references and CIFAS identity checks;
• Satisfactory declaration of interest;
• Satisfactory DBS check;
• As a public authority, we must ensure that members of staff in public-facing roles are able to speak and write in fluent English. This means that they must have a command of spoken and written English, with confidence and accuracy, sufficient for the effective performance of their role. This requirement does not refer to any particular English language qualifications, regional or international accents, dialects, speech impediments or the tone of conversations. It does not require staff to speak only in English. Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, the London Borough of Waltham Forest is a fantastic and exciting place to work.

We are a highly ambitious borough. Driven by culture and the innate creativity of our residents, we have developed new and innovative ways to build our communities. Our Council is relentlessly resident-focused, insight-led, digitally driven and commercially minded; a Council focused on meeting the needs of our existing and future residents. London Borough of Waltham Forest is one of the employers. This accreditation is a proof of our commitment to creating a healthy, fair and inclusive workplace. This includes fair pay and conditions, workplace well-being, skills and progression and diversity and recruitment.

Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both, service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives: - Promoting equality of opportunity - Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage - Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels. - Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all. Respecting Diversity is a core Council value.