Reviews Officer WCC623991

As a Reviews Officer in our Housing Solutions and Homelessness Service, you can make your own powerful contribution to people across Westminster. Working directly with residents to protect their rights and prevent homelessness, you'll manage a complex and high-risk caseload, providing specialist advice and guidance to a wide variety of clients, colleagues and partner agencies.

Your day-to-day will be varied and dynamic, including everything from carrying out detailed assessments and investigations to resolving disputes. Where necessary, you'll attend tribunals or legal hearings to defend the rights of residents, putting their wants and needs first and ensuring they fully understand the options available to them.

Your time will be split between community and office based work, and you'll act as a visible, proactive presence that residents can rely on. Whether you're drafting and reviewing complex correspondence and legal documents, resolving disputes or responding to safeguarding concerns, everything you do will put the safety and security of residents first.

An established professional with proven experience of managing complex housing and homelessness cases, you'll have in-depth knowledge of safeguarding responsibilities, housing and homelessness law, and the following legislation:

- The Housing Act 1996 (Parts VI and VII)
- The Domestic Abuse Act 2021
- The Localism Act 2011
- The Equalities Act 2010
- The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017

Confident interpreting and applying legislation in frontline practice, you'll be capable of making balanced decisions in line with policy. Where high-pressure situations or safeguarding concerns arise, you'll handle them quickly, calmly and appropriately - taking every precaution to protect vulnerable residents and uphold statutory duties. Acting as a source of expert advice and guidance to service-users and colleagues, you'll make recommendations confidently and communicate complex information clearly.

On a personal level, you'll be an empathetic advocate for the rights of people facing or experiencing homelessness. Prioritising the wants and needs of our residents will be at the heart of everything you do, and you'll work to continuously improve the way the Council supports the people we serve.

Housing Needs in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories. For Abbie, a Homelessness Officer, the work is often about stopping a crisis from happening at all.

This might mean negotiating with landlords, working through financial difficulties with residents, or finding practical solutions that allow people to remain in their homes.

In one situation, Abbie worked with a resident who was at risk of losing their home after the rent became unaffordable and possession action had started. By working closely with the landlord, she took the time to understand what had driven the landlord to increase the rent and the residents' financial situation. Through careful negotiation, she was able to secure an affordable agreement that worked for both parties. The possession action was withdrawn and the resident was able to stay in their home.

At Westminster, we understand that homelessness is multifaceted and caused by various factors, and addressing homelessness often goes beyond providing emergency accommodation - it requires an in-depth understanding of the root causes. This is why, alongside her negotiation work with the landlord, Abbie worked with officers across the department and the wider Council to help maximise the resident's income. For Abbie, cases like this are not only about securing housing in the interim, they are about ensuring that residents are also able to sustain their tenancies in the long-term.

This kind of work requires persistence, judgement and empathy. Across Westminster, this is what our Housing Needs officers do every day: working with residents to turn difficult situations into new beginnings., Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. Westminster City Council's strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city's future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe.

At Westminster City Council, we pride ourselves on being an inclusive workplace and employer of choice. We encourage and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that, at all levels, represents the communities we serve. We champion equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, has a sense of belonging and is empowered to be their best, that is the Westminster Way. To find out more about how we do this visit https://www.westminster.gov.uk/health-and-social-care/public-health-strategy-policies-and-reports/equality-duties

As a forward-thinking Council we appreciate that people work in different ways, therefore our staff benefit from working a range of flexible working patterns as well as Agile working.