Housing Standards Officer

Cheshire East Council

Housing Standards Officer

Reference: E2341

Location: Crewe

Salary: - Grade 9 - £34,723 -£37,261 per annum

Contract: Permanent, 37 hours per week

Housing Standards Officers play a critical role in ensuring rented housing across Cheshire East meets a safe living standard. The role is to educate, engage and encourage landlords to provide safe housing and take enforcement action where it is needed to deal with breaches in legislation.

Cheshire East is an amazing place to live and work. As one of the largest employers in the borough, we are able to offer you a wide range of challenging and rewarding career opportunities.

At Cheshire East Council we are working for a brighter future – together and our commitment to you is that our workplace culture will provide a shared purpose, a well-led organisation with valued people succeeding together as one team and one council to deliver the best service for our customers and communities.

If you want to be part of our award-winning council and contribute to our ongoing success, have the flexibility and drive to enable us to innovate, are committed to working as part of a team and striving to deliver exceptional service wherever you can, we would especially like to hear from you.

As an equal opportunities employer, we welcome applicants from all backgrounds and want our workforce to reflect the diversity of our local communities so that we can all work for a brighter future - together.

The importance of a good standard of housing has never felt so important since the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis. As people have spent more time at home, it’s become more apparent the impact that a good home can have on someone's health - and conversely, how a poorly maintained home can exacerbate poor physical and mental well-being. The Housing Standards teamwork across a diverse housing sector, but primarily with low-income households in private rented housing.

You will bring your construction/housing enforcement knowledge to this role, to be part of a team to drive up standards across the rented sector, ensure compliance in how Houses in Multiple Occupation are managed, and tackle issues caused by empty homes. Your work will cover a diverse range of housing issues, including energy efficiency, damp and mould, electrical safety and fire safety amongst many other health and safety concerns.

We are looking for someone who can demonstrate excellent negotiation and interpersonal skills to effectively manage all stakeholders in the enforcement process, including tenants, private landlords, registered providers of social housing, other accommodation providers, the Fire Service, the Police, and other Council departments.

The role will provide the opportunity to work on a diverse range of cases both in the office and on-site in people's homes. You will need good organisational, report writing and IT skills and attention to detail.

The Council operates a hybrid working approach meaning that you will work from home and from our office in Crewe, as well as carry out home visits. The successful applicant must be able to work from home and to be able to travel to multiple locations across the Cheshire East area.  The Council will provide the appropriate IT equipment to enable hybrid working.

Closing date: 08 October 2023