About Watford Borough Council
Watford is an urban borough in South West Hertfordshire; The borough has excellent transport links with mainline rail connections to London. Watford is the centre of a sub region serving around 500,000 people living within a 20 minute travelling time catchment. As part of the London commuter belt Watford is strongly influenced by London which brings the benefits of a buoyant economy.

At a glance
• £1.4bn local investment happening – mix of public and private funding
• 5 major development and regeneration projects happening
• 3500 registered businesses
• Higher than average working age population
• Skilled workforce
• Affordable local housing market
• Home to many major international head offices

The Role:-

What we are looking for:- Are you an experienced Temporary Accommodation/Property/Rental Officer looking for an exciting challenge and wanting to make a difference?

Watford Borough Council is looking for someone to work as part of a team, leading the critical service providing quality and cost effective emergency accommodation for our homeless households.

This role is an exciting and challenging post, giving you the opportunity to manage and refocus the council’s emergency accommodation. Having oversight of existing contracts and maximizing effective use of available accommodation. This role will work to manage the accommodation in use, to source good value and good quality units, and to drive down costs. This work is essential in supporting our residents at an extremely difficult time in their lives.

Ideally you will have an understanding of the Homelessness Reduction Act and local authority Allocations policies, have experience of arranging residential lettings and assessing property standards. You will need to be skilled at managing multiple relationships, positively problem solving and be confident at monitoring and reporting on spend and performance data. We would like you to have drive and ambition to champion and embed a culture of continuous improvement within the housing service. You will have personal credibility and an approach that builds rapport and confidence with colleagues, customers and businesses. We are committed to supporting you to develop, both personally and in terms of your specialist knowledge.

We are an organisation that actively supports agile working, building on the outstanding success of flexible working practices developed during the pandemic. Our Town Hall is within easy walking distance of our fantastic town centre with access to a wide range of shops, cafes and bars, as well as award winning open spaces such as Cassiobury Park. With local connections to the Metropolitan line, London Overground and other mainline services at Watford Junction, we are ideally located for convenient commuting from both London and across Hertfordshire.

We look forward to working with you.

What we offer:
- Salary £39,639
- 28 days’ holiday per annum (rising to 33 days for long service)
- Pension scheme with generous employer contribution
- Flexible and agile working
- Learning and development opportunities
- Season ticket loan
- EV Car leasing scheme
- Cycle-to-work scheme
- Discounted leisure centre membership
- Employee volunteering schemes
- Access to a branded shopping discounts platform and discounted activities and days out

Sound exciting? Come and join our team, come and make a difference.

Successful applicants will need to attend our Assessment Centre.

For an informal discussion and to find out more about the post contact Justine Hoy on 01923 278449 or justine.hoy@watford.gov.uk or, after 06/01/2025, Nisha Mistry on 01923 278587 or nisha.mistry@watford.gov.uk

Closing date: 9am 13th January 2025

Unfortunately, late applications cannot be accepted.

A basic Disclosure check or DBS enhanced check (as applicable) will be carried out for this post.

At Watford Borough Council we consider equality issues alongside other factors when making decisions as an employer of choice. We are committed to ensuring that we have effective policies, strategies, procedures, and processes and that we encourage behaviour which promotes equality, encourages diversity, and contributes to an inclusive organisational culture.