Are you committed to improving quality-of-life for customers? We at Local Space are, and we know that the best way we can achieve that is to provide people with a home they can be proud of and deliver cutting-edge services that are a pleasure to use. That’s why we’ve tripled the size of our kitchen & bathroom replacement programmes and are making a major investment in the development of our repairs and online services over the next 5 years.

If you’re a champion of the customer experience, are comfortable driving the development of digital services and have experience of leading housing, property and/or asset management services we want to meet you.

We are Local Space, a 2,500 home registered provider of social housing operating in East London & Essex. We are a G1 V1 rated RP and are the only housing association to hold the sector’s highest credit rating, AA-.

Originally formed by the London Borough of Newham as an innovative and independent vehicle for the acquisition and refurbishment of temporary accommodation. We work in 8 London boroughs and across a variety of districts in Essex. We continue to acquire and refurbish properties and added 300 homes to our stock in 2019. We also offer intermediate rented homes for local keyworkers.

Reporting to:   Operations Director

Responsible for staff:    x9 Operations Officers, x2 Operations People Managers

Location: Stratford, London

Salary: £71,000

Permanent, full time, 35hrs per week, essential car user.

The Role

The Head of Operations leads our Asset Management & Housing teams. They are responsible for the day to day delivery of our responsive repairs, planned maintenance, statutory compliance, tenancy management, estate management, arrears recovery, allocations, lettings, tenant involvement and social & economic regeneration services.

Our operational priorities for the coming years are:

• embedding a culture of service and customer care
• developing and launching our app to provide excellent digital services to customers
• developing our CIVICA CX housing management system to realise the benefits of its CRM, workflow case management and automation capabilities
• developing robust database fed performance reporting capabilities
• embedding new contractual arrangements with our responsive repairs partner, Axis Europe
• delivering an ambitious component replacement and environmental improvements programme

You

We’re looking for someone who can demonstrate:

• A passion for improving our customers’ quality of life
• A track record of leading departments to improve performance & customer satisfaction
• Experience of leading improvements in the configuration and use of operational systems and technology
• Experience of successfully launching & embedding digital services to customers
• Experience of leading asset management, housing and/or property services

Job Purpose

The Head of Operations is responsible to the Operations Director for all operational aspects of asset and housing management within the organisation including, but not limited to:

• Income collection
• Voids
• Lettings
• Estate Services
• Repairs
• Facilities Management
• Planned works & component replacement
• Proactive asset management
• H&S
• Tenant involvement

The post holder will manage and ensure the ongoing success of the organisation’s asset and housing management functions and lead the operations team’s managers and officers.

The post holder is also responsible to the Operations Director for the housing and asset management services’ compliance with social housing regulation.

The post holder will champion the needs of our customers and drive customer experience as a business priority.

The post holder will deputise for the Operations Director as required.

Key Tasks

1. Working with the Operations Director; implement the elements of our corporate plan that relate to asset management & housing services.
2. Develop and implement plans to achieve continuous improvement of the organisation’s asset & housing management functions.
3. Develop our customer experience and improve the efficiency of our operations by taking advantage of property sector technological developments and offering digital self-services.
4. Champion the effective procurement, configuration and use of IT systems to support the Operations team achieve its objectives in as efficient a manner as possible.
5. Review the financial, social and environmental performance of our assets and implement asset management strategies to make best use of our resources.
6. Be responsible to the Operations Director for social housing regulatory compliance.
7. Play an active role in the senior management team contributing to the overall management of the organisation.
8. Develop and maintain business assurance systems, policies and processes to ensure:
   1. high quality service delivery our customers
   2. compliance with health & safety regulation and statute
   3. compliance with social housing regulation
   4. appropriate cost control and operating margins are achieved
9. Act as primary authority and advisor on technical asset management and housing law matters, instructing specific external advice as may be necessary, interpreting this advice, and ensuring that it influences the teams’s practice.
10. Oversee the organisation’s reactive repairs service ensuring it achieves value for money and appropriately maintains our assets
11. Plan and deliver capital expenditure improvement works programmes to appropriately maintain the organisation’s assets in the long term.
12. Tender for/negotiate, appoint and contract manage front line suppliers and agents ensuring these arrangements achieve good value for money and meet operational targets.
13. Set and increase rents in compliance with our regulatory and contractual obligations.
14. Maintain and develop effective professional networks that will add value to the organisation and manage social housing sector stakeholder relationships with membership bodies including, but not limited to, the NHF, CIH, HQN and Housemark.
15. Provide timely and accurate performance information to the Operations Director & Executive Management Team.
16. Manage our existing contractual client relationships with Local Authorities to promote collaborative working in accordance with the terms of the relevant legal agreements.

Educational Achievements, Qualifications, Training

1. Recognised housing qualification
2. Degree level education or equivalent through relevant training and experience 

Experience and Knowledge

1. Track record at senior level, gained from working in a growing and dynamic housing association.
2. A proven track record of managing a range of stakeholder relationships, establishing consensus and shared goals in pursuing tangible delivery of agreed objectives.
3. Able to show a good grasp of the compliance, regulatory and funding framework for registered providers
4. Experience of working at a senior level to ensure that residents/customers’ needs are at the core of an organisation, and that high-quality services are delivered.

Job Related Aptitude and Skills

1. Strong negotiating and influencing expertise, able to work intuitively and liaise effectively with a wide range of audiences.
2. Excellent verbal, written communication, presentation and interpersonal skills.
3. Strong financial reasoning; able to assess risk and promote risk awareness without being risk averse.
4. Well-developed project management skills.
5. IT literate, comfortable with using MS Office including Word, Excel etc.

Additional Requirements

1. Any understanding and commitment to equal opportunities
2. Any understanding of health and safety in the workplace
3. Any understanding of data protection confidentiality

Equalities and Diversity

In line with the organisation’s Equalities Act 2010 Local Space Staff must to ensure that no users of its services, its employees or job applicants are unfairly discriminated against because of their identifies the following protected characteristics of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation or criminal record nor disadvantaged by any conditions or requirements that cannot be shown to be justified. Local Space is committed to ensuring and promoting the rights of all people to equality of opportunity and all staff are required to abide by these principles.

Budgetary responsibilities

As per the financial regulations and standing orders; be accountable for the management of the following capital and revenue budgets:

1. Housing Services
2. Asset Management Budget

Customer care (Internal and external)

Colleague, tenants, household members.

Stakeholders/partners

Advisors, local authority clients, contractors and agencies.

Health and Safety

It is the duty of all employees to ensure that a safe working environment and safe working practices are maintained at all times.  It is also the responsibility of management to do so.

Data Protection

In line with national legislation data will be processed in a fair and lawful way, for the specific registered purpose and not disclosed in any way incompatible with such purpose or to any unauthorised persons or organisations.

This organisation attaches the greatest importance and confidentiality to tenants, staff, and other data held by the organisation. All data should be treated as confidential and should only be disclosed on a need to know basis.

Employment conditions and benefits

This is for information only and does not form part of any contractual obligation.

• Local Space operates a 35-hour week.
• New staff are subject to a probationary period, after probation a generous sick pay above statutory sick pay is provided.
• The full holiday year starts on 1st January and ends on 31st December each year. Staff get 27 days annual leave. Note all staff are required to ensure that two days are reserved for Local Space Christmas close down, Local Space gifts the third day.
• Staff get an additional annual leave day on the anniversary of their second year at Local Space, bringing their annual entitlement to 28 days. Staff get an additional two days annual leave on the anniversary of their fifth year at Local Space, bringing their annual entitlement to 30 days.
• Staff who have passed their probation are eligible to apply for annual qualification support.
• Local Space support training both corporately and departmentally.
• Local Space pay up to 5% performance related pay, eligibility is dependent on the completion of probation and the start date in the performance cycle.
• Local Space is legally required to auto enrol staff on the pension scheme, new staff will need to confirm in writing on an annual basis if they do not wish to be part of the pension scheme.  Local Space operates the 1/80ths TPT Retirement Solutions of the Social Housing Pension Scheme (SHPS). Local Space contributes 7.7% and the employee contributes 4.9%, any changes to contribution will be notified in writing.
• Staff who are not enrolled on to the pension scheme, on commencement of employment will be included on the Company’s Group Life Assurance Scheme under which the Death in Service Benefit is two times annual salary. The Scheme is non-contributory.
• Local Space offer the gold healthcare cash plan run by BHSF employee benefits. The benefit is tax deductible and staff need to opt into the scheme. There is a wide range of benefits available from cash back for prescription glasses and dental appointments to reduced rates for gym membership.
• For staff who do not join BHSF, Local Space will pay for eye sight tests and a contribution for prescription glasses in the first year.

• All posts are subject to a 6 month probationary period
• This post is/is not subject to an Enhanced DBS check
• This post is/is not exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (1974), therefore applicants must be prepared to disclose all criminal convictions and cautions, including those that would otherwise be spent under the Act.