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Short summary

The job of the Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities is to create great places to live and work, and to give more power to local people to shape what happens in their area. 

The Government has committed to eliminating rough sleeping in the term of this parliament, and to fully enforce the Homelessness Reduction Act. This is an exciting time to join a high-profile team and provides a great opportunity for excellent individuals to work collaboratively across sectors and help influence the shape of homelessness service delivery, and make a real difference to thousands of lives.

The Homelessness Reduction Act came into force in April 2018 and significantly reformed England’s homelessness legislation by placing duties on local authorities to intervene earlier to prevent homelessness in their areas. An early review of the implementation of the Act carried out during 2019-20 found that much had been achieved by local authorities and partners to improve services to prevent homelessness, but there is much still to do.  

The Homelessness Advice and Support Team (HAST) provides advice and guidance to local areas implementing the HRA,  and the team has continued to work closely with local authorities on delivery of the new duties, improving homeless services and performance. HAST advisers also work alongside the Rough Sleeping Initiative team to support local areas to reduce rough sleeping, and are working with local areas on the Rough Sleeping Accommodation Programme to increase the supply of safe and suitable housing for people moving on from rough sleeping. 

We are now recruiting for a new adviser to join the HAST team. The role is offered as a secondment opportunity (on existing salary) or as a fixed term contract  We are looking to recruit advisers for either our North or South Team.  The North Team covers the midlands and north of the country, and the South Team covers London and the South.  For our South Team we are particularly interested to hear from candidates who have experience of working in London. 

Job description

The roles involve: 

•    Visiting and working with local authorities across England, providing advice, support and challenge that is relevant to local context and issues

•    Supporting work to embed the Homelessness Reduction Act, including helping local authorities build a preventative problem solving culture and deliver results for single homeless people.

•    Working with local authorities to deliver the government’s target to end rough sleeping, including providing support with bids for the Rough Sleepers Accommodation Programme and other MHCLG funding, and holding authorities to account for delivery 

•    Supporting local authorities to develop their homelessness strategies and governance, and to collaborate effectively with partners to prevent homelessness

•    Providing targeted challenge and support to help local areas to improve practice and performance

•    Supporting the development and sharing of effective practice.

•    Supporting implementation of improved data collection, as well as learning from experience around the country to inform on-going policy development 

•    Delivering presentations, workshops and events, disseminating good practice information and advice

•    Effective recording and sharing of key information to support programme management and policy development

Responsibilities

Person Specification and Essential Criteria 

1.    An expert and leader in the field of homelessness, with an understanding of the factors which contribute to individuals and families becoming homeless and a proven track record in developing and delivering services which effectively prevent homelessness and support vulnerable people. 

2.    Comprehensive knowledge and understanding of legislation, policy and practice relating to homelessness in England.

3.    Excellent knowledge and understanding of local government, key partners and stakeholders, their roles and interests, and the operational and political context in which services are provided to people at risk of homelessness.

4.    Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, including ability to motivate and inspire individuals and groups and to support the development of partnerships around shared commitments to improve outcomes

5.    Strong verbal and written presentation skills including the ability to able to speak at conferences and events

6.    An excellent understanding of equality and diversity and issues surrounding disadvantage and discrimination, and the ability to advise and support local authorities to provide excellent customer care to all sections of their community.  

7.    A minimum of 2 years’ experience of leadership at a senior and strategic level preferably within a local authority, including a track record of working in partnership to achieve consistent and sustainable improvements in services and outcomes for homeless people.

8.    Experience of working within a political environment, providing advice and guidance to Elected Members/Boards and Senior Leadership Teams

Offered benefits

Learning and development tailored to your role

An environment with flexible working options

A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity

A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

Selection process details

We are for everyone

At DLUHC we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce. We promote equality of opportunity in all aspects of employment and a working environment free from discrimination, harassment, bullying and victimisation.

We would strongly recommend that applicants get in touch with the vacancy manager to find out more information about this role.

We are for everyone

DLUHC want to bring in a diverse workforce at all levels.

Our application system is designed to remove as much bias as possible from the recruitment system – this means that a hiring manager does not know your name, your details, see your whole application in one go (or have your CV at review stage unless stated otherwise).

Your answers are randomised and chunked up. This means that each assessor views sets of responses to questions for example all candidates’ responses to ‘Seeing the Big Picture’ rather than seeing a candidate’s full application. The science behind this is that recruitment can be subject to ordering and fatigue effects and we want to reduce this as much as possible.

Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that each of your answers would be viewed by different assessors.

When writing your application, remember:

The assessor won’t be reading your answers sequentially.

Do not assume that the same assessors will have read all of your answers.

If talking about something in your first answer, make sure that you write the second answer as if you had not written the first (and so on!)

At sift, we will be assessing

Experience (Lead Criteria): Please set your experience of  leadership at a senior and strategic level; and of working in partnership to improve services and outcomes for homeless people 

Technical: What are the top three challenges you would advise local housing authorities to prepare for in their work to prevent homelessness over the next two years? 

Behaviour: Seeing the Big Picture

Behaviour: Changing and Improving

There is a 250 word limit per question. 

In the event that we receive a large number of applications, we may conduct an initial sift using the lead behaviour listed in the advert. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment/interview 

The interview will be of a blended nature consisting of behaviour, experience and technical based questions as listed in the advert. Making Effective Decisions, Leadership, Communicating and Influencing, Working Together and Delivering at Pace will be tested as additional behaviours at interview stage. The strength based questions will require natural responses from the candidates. Candidates will also be expected to deliver a presentation at interview stage, the details of which would be provided upon invitation.

In full the campaign will test the below Success Profile Elements:

Behaviours: Seeing the Big Picture, Changing and Improving, Making Effective Decisions, Leadership, Communicating and Influencing, Working Together, Delivering at Pace

Experience:  Yes

Technical: Yes

Grade 7 salary

The salary for this role is £53,132 (London) £48,197 (National).

For existing civil servants, the usual policy on level transfer and promotion will apply and is non-negotiable.

Our pay award for this year is being negotiated and will be revised upwards - if you have any questions, please email the recruitment team.

BENEFITS:

Transfers across the Civil Service on or after 4 October 2018:

Any move to DLUHC from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

For further information about the benefits available to DLUHC employees, please see the attached Candidate Pack.

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION:

London

Wolverhampton

Darlington*

Birkenhead

Birmingham

Cambridge

Hemel Hempstead

Leeds

Manchester

Newcastle Upton Tyne

Nottingham

Sheffield

Warrington

There may be opportunities for candidates to work flexibly depending on the business needs. This will be discussed with the vacancy manager on a case-by-case basis if you are successful for the role.

*Please note: The Darlington Economic Campus (DEC) is a pioneering new cross-government hub which will bring together people across departments and public organisations to play an active role in the most important economic issues of the day. The work of the Campus will make a real difference to people both across the UK and internationally. There will be substantial career opportunities and exciting prospects - a career at the Campus means you will be working at the heart of Government, with access to the benefits and fantastic opportunities offered by the civil service. This role is based at DLUHC and we will be joined on the campus by:

HM Treasury

Department for International Trade

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Office for National Statistics

Department for Education

For further information on the DEC, please take a look at the attached DEC candidate pack.

SIFT AND INTERVIEW DATES:

Sifting is envisaged to take place W/C 17th October 2022 with interview dates to be confirmed. All interviews are currently being held remotely via videocall.

RESERVE LIST:

In the event that we identify more appointable candidates than we currently have posts available, we will hold applicant details on a reserve list for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. This may include roles at a lower grade. Candidates placed on a reserve list will be informed of this. Due to the length of time CTC checks can take, our HR Shared Services team will contact reserve list candidates for London based roles to commence CTC checks. Those candidates who do not wish to remain on the reserve list should contact recruitment@levellingup.gov.uk to be removed from the reserve list.

CTC (Counter-terrorism Clearance):

Important note

Successful candidates for roles based in our 2 Marsham Street building must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check and the process can take up to 8 weeks to complete.

Please note that successful candidates will need to pass the CTC security checks – this requires you to have been resident in the UK for the past 3 years. Please refer to the DLUHC Notes on Security Clearance section of our Candidate Pack for further information on Counter Terrorism Clearance (CTC). Thank you.

Candidates should also note that with effect from 1st August 2018 the department will also check all applicants who are successful at interview, against the Internal Fraud Database (IFD) held by the Cabinet Office. In accordance with the Civil Service Internal Fraud Policy, any applicant who is included on the IFD will be refused employment by DLUHC. Please see the Candidate Pack for further information on the Internal Fraud Database.

Before starting your application it’s very important to make sure that you are eligible to apply and meet the Civil Service nationality requirements. All candidates are expected to read the information provided in the DLUHC candidate pack regarding nationality requirements and rules

Candidate Pack Information

Please see attached Candidate pack for further information.

Internal Fraud Database

The Internal Fraud function of the Fraud, Error, Debt and Grants Function at the Cabinet Office processes details of civil servants who have been dismissed for committing internal fraud, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned. The Cabinet Office receives the details from participating government organisations of civil servants who have been dismissed, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned, for internal fraud. In instances such as this, civil servants are then banned for 5 years from further employment in the civil service. The Cabinet Office then processes this data and discloses a limited dataset back to DLUHC as a participating government organisations. DLUHC then carry out the pre employment checks so as to detect instances where known fraudsters are attempting to reapply for roles in the civil service. In this way, the policy is ensured and the repetition of internal fraud is prevented.

For more information please see- Internal Fraud Register

Fixed Term Details

For external candidates – you will be offered a 2 year fixed term appointment with a possibility of permanency.  

For existing civil servants – you will be offered a 2 year loan opportunity. Before applying for the role, you will need to seek approval from your parent department to take up a loan appointment should you be successful. 

For DLUHC employees - you will retain your existing contract