Team Manager - Assessment and Triage WCC623995

As a Team Manager specialising in Assessment and Triage, you can make your own powerful contribution to people across Westminster. Joining the Council's Housing Solutions & Homelessness division, you'll provide day-to-day leadership and supervision to a team of Assessment and Triage Officers. Your team will make the first, crucial assessment and triage decisions for people experiencing homelessness, so it's vital that you act as a source of expert advice and support. Where complex queries arise, you'll be the escalation point, providing specialist guidance on housing and homelessness legislation, policies and procedures. Working in a front-line leadership role gives you the unrivalled ability to make an immediate impact to people experiencing homelessness, helping to get them the support they need, when they need it. Some of your work will be in the community, and you'll need to balance operational delivery with safeguarding responsibilities and performance management. As a leader, you'll be hands-on and approachable, giving your staff the coaching and training they need to develop their skillsets. Fostering a collaborative culture built on accountability, inclusion and continuous improvement, you'll play a vital role in shaping the service to better prioritise the wellbeing of residents.

An experienced homelessness leader who thrives in a fast-paced, purposeful environment, you'll have significant experience managing teams in a homelessness service. You'll bring strong working knowledge of safeguarding frameworks, risk management, and escalation processes, alongside a good understanding of the following legislation:

• The Housing Act 1996 (Part VII)
• The Localism Act 2011
• The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017
• The Domestic Abuse Act 2021
In a previous role, you'll have led specialist or complex operational functions, including managing budgets, staff and resources, and you'll have the proven ability to motivate and support teams in a fast-paced environment. On a personal level, you'll be a true team player capable of making quick, effective decisions under pressure. Most importantly, you'll be an individual passionate about improving outcomes for people experiencing homelessness. Putting our customer's voices at the heart of the service, you'll use feedback to shape resident experience, taking a sensitive, empathetic approach to everything you do. This is a fantastic opportunity to drive improvements in a supportive, community-rooted team that values development, inclusivity and collaboration, and to supercharge your career in the process.

The Housing Needs department in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories, and for leaders like Rachel, those stories are shaped by experience, fairness and the people she supports every day. Rachel's career in housing began on the frontlines, working in a busy contact centre where she supported residents through high-volume enquiries. She went on to progress into homelessness casework, supporting residents with complex and high risk needs, before stepping into senior roles that combined decision making with responsibility for others. Now, as Housing Register Manager, Rachel leads a team responsible for housing and medical assessments - an area within the service that has a huge impact on the lives of residents. As a manager, she provides clear guidance on difficult cases, quality checks decisions and supports her officers to apply the Westminster Council Allocations Scheme consistently and fairly. Through regular supervision and development discussions, she helps build officers' confidence and judgement, ensuring her team feel supported to make the right decisions for residents. At Westminster, we believe Everyone is a Leader. For Rachel, leadership means growing through experience, supporting others to succeed, and ensuring every resident is treated with dignity, fairness and respect., 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.