Head of Local Services - North

Remote working or based at one of our Shelter Offices (to be discussed and confirmed)

Closing date: 19th July 2020 at 11.30pm. Interviews: Initial interviews : 29th and 30th July 2020. Final Interviews: 5th August 2020

Are you a highly skilled manager with proven experience of overseeing complex services, budgets and contract requirements in a large-scale operation across a wide geographical area, ideally in the voluntary/not for profit sector? Can you evidence where you have led change, driven efficiency and improved service effectiveness?
Then join Shelter as Head of Local Services - North and you could soon be responsible for the strategic and operational oversight of our Hubs in the North region, driving through a change programme that will revolutionise how our services are delivered.

A home is a fundamental human need, as essential as education or healthcare. Yet millions of people across Britain struggle on a daily basis with homelessness, bad housing conditions, soaring rents, discrimination and the threat of eviction. So, we are striving for change — with individuals, in communities, across society – and leading the way to a safe home. We need ambitious, best-in-class individuals who are passionate about our cause to join us at this exciting time. This is your chance to play a part in the fundamental change we are striving to achieve.

With more than 500 staff and an annual budget of over £20 million, our Local Community Services division provides expert advice and support over the phone and face-to-face from a national network of Shelter hubs. Our vision? For our hubs to be at the heart of their communities, bases for activism as well as for help and support. To deliver a personalised housing service developed with the local community, which brings together all of our resources and expertise to maximise our impact on local housing issues and needs. You’ll help make sure we do this in our North region.

About the Role
This high profile role is all about transforming, rather than simply managing, services. Indeed, we want you to deliver a change programme with your managers that will ensure hubs inspire and enable people to support us in delivering sustainable systemic change for individuals, the wider local homeless community and local homeless practice. This will involve a massive shift in mindset on how our services are delivered and we will look to you to make suggestions in how to bring about tangible improvements. This is not a static change programme, it will need to continuously improve in order to meet ever-changing demand and deliver high quality, integrated services that meet the holistic needs of those in housing need.

About you
To succeed, you’ll need significant experience of leading change, driving efficiency and improving service effectiveness, along with a track record of managing remote teams across a large geographical area in a matrix management framework. You’ll also need experience of engaging with communities, understanding how they operate and working with them to drive systemic change. The tenacity, persuasiveness and resilience it takes to build partnerships and deal with push backs is important too, as is the compassion and empathy it takes to work with service users and people with lived experience and volunteers.

Benefits
We offer a wide range of benefits, including 30 days of annual leave, enhanced family friendly policies, pension and interest free travel loans. Our employees also have access to a tenancy deposit loan, payroll giving, cycle to work scheme and an employee assistance programme.

Shelter helps millions of people every year struggling with bad housing or homelessness through our advice, support and legal services. And we campaign to make sure that, one day, no one will have to turn to us for help. We’re here so no one has to fight bad housing or homelessness on their own.

To find out more about the role and the benefits of working for Shelter please visit our website. Apply to be part of our North Region management team and be the change you want to see in society.

Safeguarding is everyone’s business. Shelter is committed to protecting the health, wellbeing and human rights of those we support, and enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect. All our staff will be expected to observe professional standards of behaviour and conduct their work in line with our Safeguarding Policies.

At Shelter, we welcome and encourage applications from everyone regardless of age, disability, gender, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation. We also encourage applications from people, who have been homeless or have been at risk of homelessness. We are facing diverse problems, so need diverse people to tackle them. In addition to this, we encourage an approach to involving people with personal insight of housing issues and homelessness in our recruitment processes.

Shelter does not accept unsolicited CVs from external recruitment agencies nor accept the fees associated with them.

To apply please email your CV and a supporting statement that addresses the key criteria on the job description to ShelterHLS@wjpfloyd.co.uk