Homechoice Officer

The Homechoice Team are looking for an officer to help deliver the Council’s housing allocation scheme fairly and consistently so that residents can access the affordable housing of their choice.

Working closely with our customers and partners through our choice-based lettings scheme, Kent Homechoice, you will consider housing register application assessments as well as advertise, shortlist, verify and nominate applicants for vacant properties.

This is a part-time position working 22.5 hours per week, Monday to Wednesday, based at our Maidstone House office in Maidstone town centre, with the scope for agile/home working under the Council’s Hybrid working arrangements, dependant on the needs of service.

Maidstone Borough Council is a confident organisation with ambition and aspirations to deliver high quality services to our residents and local businesses. We strive to make the borough an attractive place for all and secure a successful economy. We continue to build on our strengths - assets, knowledge and expertise and our track record for innovation and improvement to create a financially sustainable future so that we can continue with our undiminished plans.

We will only achieve the results we are aiming for through the talents and hard work of all our people. You are encouraged to become part of our vision and in return you can expect support, training, and fair reward from us. We will give you the opportunity to develop the skills to do your job well and create a positive working environment where your ideas about improving how we do things are valued and we manage the changes needed for new ways of working well.

At Maidstone Borough Council we recognise the importance of flexible working and the benefits this can bring to both our staff and the Council. We know that by offering employees a range of flexible working opportunities we can positively impact their wellbeing and engagement, and drive productivity in return. As such we have developed a highly flexible hybrid working policy, alongside our flexi time and flexible working policies, enabling staff to shape their working patterns around building a greater work life balance.

A range of benefits including:

You will provide a key role in providing high quality administrative support to the Homechoice Team, including gathering the supporting evidence required to ensure applicants are eligible to be on the register for social housing and are suitable for any properties that they are nominated for.

Your experience of working in a housing or customer service role will help you to remain calm under pressure while delivering the highest levels of customer service. You will also have experience of maintaining accurate records and producing statistical information using a variety of IT packages.

You will provide a key role in securing sustainable housing solutions for the wide spectrum of Maidstone’s residents from a young family just starting their housing journey, to those looking to move into a new and innovative extra-care housing scheme.

The Council considers this to be a customer focused role and the ability to converse at ease with customers adapting communication style to suit differing audiences and provide advice in accurate spoken English is fundamental to the role.

Following the submission of your application form, it will be reviewed by the recruiting manager. Those that are successful will be asked to attend an interview.

Maidstone Borough Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all employee and volunteers to share this commitment.