Housing Assessment & Advice Officer

Number of Vacancies:

1

Time Type:

Full time

Worker Type:

Regular

Proposed Interview Date:

Monday, November 30, 2026

Hours of Work:

37

Hiring Manager:

Julie Fulstow

Contact Number: 

01482 616937

Job Description Summary:

This is a Full Time Permanent Position

Interviews will take place week commencing 30 November 2026

For an informal discussion please contact Julie Fulstow or Simone Cooper on 01482 616 937 or 612 097

ROLE AND PURPOSE

The Housing Assessment & Advice Officer will deliver high quality and empathetic ‘front door’ to the housing service, delivering an initial ‘triage’ function which assists customers to navigate the service and understand their rehousing options, administers the authority’s housing list and provides practical assistance to applicants with their housing options.

They will give good quality advice to those approaching the Council for advice about housing, ensuring the appropriate course of action is identified and taken with their case at the outset, according to their specific needs and circumstances. They will give customers accurate and realistic advice about their housing options in order to manage expectations and ensure that people are supported to explore potential housing solutions.

They will make independent decisions on matters which involve an increased level of evaluation and judgement, such as priorities and direct lets, in accordance with legislation and policies and procedures. They will provide guidance to Housing Assessment and Advice Agents as required.

The Housing Access Service is a multi-disciplinary service which is the front door service to access housing in the city. It provides a comprehensive housing advice and options service designed to prevent homelessness and rough sleeping, help customers find realistic and sustainable housing solutions which meet their needs from a range of options and allocate available council homes in a timely way.

 

PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITIES:

1. Provides a professional, empathetic and high-quality service in response to customer and partner approaches for advice and assistance which may be in person, over the phone, in writing or via IT systems. This will include dealing with enquiries that the Housing Assessment & Advice Assistants need to escalate. Customer base includes clients in very stressful housing situations, those experiencing trauma, addiction and those who can be hard to engage and/or present with challenging behaviour (emotional, obstructive, verbally aggressive and hostile).

2. Delivers a ‘front door’ triage service to all customers who are approaching the council for housing advice (including those who are homeless), making an assessment of their needs and circumstances and deciding on the appropriate action for their case in accordance with agreed protocols. This will include (but is not limited to) giving early homelessness advice with handover to the Homelessness Prevention & Options team, routing calls for temporary accommodation or the Domestic Abuse Housing Hub to colleagues immediately, giving realistic and accurate advice about whether an offer of council accommodation is likely and advising in accordance with the council’s Allocations Policy. This may require work to be carried out in a range of settings including council offices/access points, customers’ homes, voluntary sector agencies and other community settings.

3. Provides advice and practical assistance to customers with their housing options, including early/upstream homelessness prevention activity, holding a personal caseload. This may include (but is not limited to) linking the customer in early with a Housing Sustainment Officer to prevent homelessness, registering applications onto the housing list including decisions on priorities, direct lets, downbandings and disqualifications, assisting customers with bidding, supporting them to register and search for a mutual exchange or register onto other providers’ housing lists, and linking in with wider Housing Access and Neighbourhoods & Housing colleagues to explore potential housing solutions in accordance with complex case protocols.

4. Liaises with registered housing providers to make nominations to their available properties, preparing and producing property adverts for this purpose where necessary. Follows up nominations made, ensuring that the outcomes are recorded.

5. Ensures that any potential barriers to accessing accommodation are identified and customers are supported to address these at the outset to prevent problems later down the line. This includes carrying out pre-tenancy and affordability checks and taking into account when considering priorities and direct lets, signposting to benefit maximisation advice, tenancy sustainment or mental health support, linking in with colleagues around the provision of furniture packages where necessary or supporting those with poor tenancy/housing histories to explore their most appropriate housing options, including giving advice about how to appeal against disqualifications or downbandings.

6. Maintains an expert knowledge of wider Housing Access Team priorities and issues, relevant legislation, policies, procedures and trends in order to make independent decisions on more complex issues that come through the Housing Assessment and Advice Team. These decisions may include (but are not limited to) supporting the Assessment & Advice Agents with their decision making, considering and awarding direct lets and priorities and disqualifying applicants from the housing list within agreed protocols.

7. Administers their workload efficiently ensuring accurate and professional information is recorded on systems as appropriate. Collates statistics where required regarding team activity to feed into performance management activity and ensures that the required information is fed back to government HCLIC (homelessness) and CORE (lettings) returns.

8. Prioritises their own caseload and also collaborates with their team to identify pressure points and agree and contribute to team priorities, to meet the demands of the service and ensure targets are met.

9. Attends case conferences and represents the team at multi-agency meetings and events as required.

10. Mentors new starters to the service as deemed appropriate.

11. To promote and safeguard the welfare of children, young people and/or vulnerable adults.

12. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and associated legislation places responsibilities for health and safety on Hull City Council, as your employer and you as an employee of the council. In addition to the Councils overall duties, the post holder has personal responsibility for their own health, safety and wellbeing and that of other employees; additional and more specific responsibilities are identified in the Council’s Corporate H&S policy.

 

NC4719.Housing Assessment & Advice Officer.docx

Compensation Grades:

GRADES 6.

Pay Ranges:

£30,515.00 - £33,119.00

Job Classifications:

2- Basic with BPSS - (Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)), 3- Not Politically Restricted - Designated As Not Politically Sensitive (Politically Restricted Posts), Casual - (Travel Allowance Policy), No - (Childcare Disqualification Requirement), No - (Statutory Post)

Benefits of Working of Hull City Council:
- A competitive salary
- An excellent pension through the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
- Initially 23 days annual leave depending on length of service. You will also get eight public holidays per year, and three additional days off, one in May/August and one during the Christmas/New year period
- Career development and learning experiences from a range of training courses and learning methods
- Supportive and forward-thinking culture
- Great career development opportunities

PLEASE NOTE: you MUST complete and submit your application by midnight prior to the closing date. For example: If the closing date is Friday 16 October 2026 then your application must be submitted by 11:59pm on Thursday 15 October 2026.

 

Please ensure that your application demonstrates how you meet the essential criteria against the person specification as listed in the job description. Provide examples to support your application rather than use of lists.

We are committed to increasing the diversity, equality, and inclusion within our workforce to represent the people we serve and build an environment in which everyone can feel like they belong. We encourage people from all backgrounds to apply. 

We adopt a ‘name blind’ approach to shortlisting.  Recruiting managers will not have access to personal information, including your name and contact details, until a shortlisting decision has been made. Equality monitoring information is not accessible by recruiting managers at any stage.

We reserve the right to amend the dates associated with this advert, which may include closing the advert early where required.

The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

Online searches, including social media, may be carried out as part of the recruitment process.

We are committed to “our values” at the Council of People First, Respect, Learning, Ambition and Partnership. If these align with you then we welcome your application.