About the job

Job summary

Homes England, the government's national housing agency, is seeking a dynamic and experienced professional to join our Chief Customer Officer team as the Director of Portfolio Management and Customer Centricity. This pivotal role - reporting direct to an Executive Leader, the Chief Customer Officer – is needed to transform, improve and digitise the way we serve our 250,000 Help to Buy & Legacy scheme customers.  This role will oversee the stewardship of our £18 billion equity loan book, supporting repayment by the customer when due and providing careful management and understanding for customers when they face financial difficulty.  The successful candidate will play a crucial role in ensuring we deliver high-quality customer service, defining, and implementing a long-term portfolio management strategy, and balancing the needs of customers with value for money for the taxpayer. 

 

Job description

Help to Buy & Legacy Lending Oversight: Act as the senior delivery owner for the closed Help to Buy book and its legacy programs, managing financial, fiduciary, and reputational risks arising from the portfolio and ensuring key stakeholders are managed and regulations adhered to.  

Strategic Portfolio Management: Develop and implement a long-term management strategy for the loan portfolio, ensuring a balance between customer needs, policy and value for money, in line with wider government priorities.  

Risk Management: Ensure effective management of financial, fiduciary, and reputational risks associated with the loan book, being accountable to Homes England Executive, Board, and Ministers for successful delivery against agreed priorities and objectives.

Innovation and Transformation:  Develop and Execute innovation and transformation in how we serve our customers, working with the outsourced model to leverage efficiencies including more digitalisation and self-serve as well as leveraging third-party technological solutions to enhance outcomes for customers and taxpayers, establishing a sustainable, efficient, long-term business model.

Customer Support: Utilise expertise in supporting customers facing financial difficulties, particularly those in arrears, to ensure a compassionate and effective approach to customer service.

Commercial management – harness previous experience to build commercial relationships with the agency’s service provider and where services are outsourced ensure appropriate controls and levers are in place to support and enable a successful service.  

Stakeholder Engagement: Developing strong relationships at all levels within Homes England and our key stakeholders at the Department of Housing and Levelling Up as well as industry influencers such as UK finance.  

Person specification

An experienced leader in a scale consumer business who understands the importance of a customer centric strategy.  Ideally you will come from a financial services background – particularly with a lending portfolio experience (not necessarily mortgage lending).

 

You will be a strategic thinker with a proven track record of delivering results and change in complex financial environments and multiple stakeholder engagement delivered through empowering, inspiring and leading colleagues.  

 

We are looking for someone who brings energy, ideas and enthusiasm and can execute organisational and transformational change – particularly the digitation of our service proposition.  

 

You will also need to understand the social impact and benefits of the Help to Buy Loan book and how we can deliver value for money whilst at the same time supporting customers.

 

Leading a team Assistant Directors and around 100 colleagues in their teams you will inspire and bring colleagues with you on the journey as measured by our colleague survey.  

 

Please note this role will be 50% office based at one of our offices outside of London that will include extensive travel across our UK offices. 

Benefits

Homes England is an executive non-departmental public body with its own terms and conditions, benefits and pension scheme. We are a government agency working in partnership with the private sector and want to employ and retain great people. In return we offer a range of excellent benefits.

Holiday - Homes England offers all staff 33 days annual leave per year in addition to 8 statutory bank holidays.

Working Flexibly - At Homes England we have a strong culture of flexible working and encourage all employees to have a healthy work/life balance. We offer a wide range of potential working patterns, including part time, job share and compressed hours.

These need to be balanced with business needs so they will vary from job to job. If you would like to know more please speak to the Recruiting Manager.

Health and Wellbeing - We offer health screening with Nuffield Proactive Health Clinics, a free Employee Assistance Programme which offers confidential support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as well as access to Occupational Health.

Professional Development - At Homes England we are committed to your continued professional and personal development with learning as one of our core values. We pay for one job-related professional membership subscription per year for our employees.

We also offer an excellent range of family friendly benefits, for example, maternity, paternity, shared parental leave.

If anyone has any queries on any of these terms and conditions, please get in touch for further information.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

Apply via Link

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

Please note this Post is NOT regulated by the Civil Service Commission. The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.