About the job

Job summary

The adviser role includes regular face to face contact with local authorities, stakeholders and civil service colleagues in a variety of locations across the country and can require extensive travel commitments and overnight stays.  This means it is highly likely that you will undertake official business from sites other than your official DLUHC office, alongside homebased working in accordance with DLHUC policies.

The Homelessness Advice and Support Team (HAST) based within the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Directorate, provides advice and guidance to local areas implementing the Homelessness Reduction Act, and continues to work closely with local authorities on delivery of the new duties, improving homeless services and performance.

The team is made up of people with operational experience of managing homelessness services and leading improvements in service delivery at a senior level.

This is an exciting time to join a high-profile team and provides a great opportunity for an excellent individual to: work collaboratively across sectors, help influence the shape of youth homelessness and the delivery of services to prevent young people from becoming homeless, and ensure looked after young people are supported through successful transitions to independence, making a real difference to thousands of lives.

The post holder will deliver a workplan to provide expert advice, support and challenge on youth homelessness prevention to local authority Housing and Children’s Services departments across England

Job description

We are looking for a candidate who understands the challenges and complexities of young people who are homeless, particularly those age 16/17 and who are care experienced, and the impact it has on the people affected; and who has a commitment to transforming services and reducing homelessness.

The successful candidate will have managed and lead homelessness and young people’s services, and have experience of working with local authorities to improve the delivery of services and improve outcomes for young people at risk of homelessness.

The role involves:

1. Visiting and working with local authorities and key partners across England, ensuring work is delivered effectively and to demanding timescales.
2. Delivering targeted advice, challenge and support to local authority housing and children’s services departments; to help improve practice and performance, and to develop and share effective practice to prevent youth homelessness and improve local service delivery.
3. Delivering expert adviser support to local authority housing and children’s services departments, that is relevant to local context and issues, and providing additional guidance and challenge to areas where needed.
4. Responsible for local authority engagement, delivery, monitoring and reporting of a targeted DfE funded programme for services that prevent care experienced young people from becoming homeless, in areas of highest need.
5. Supporting work to embed the Homelessness Reduction Act, and particularly to help local authorities address the complex interaction between homelessness and children’s social care legislation, build a preventative problem solving culture and deliver the best outcomes for vulnerable young people.
6. Providing guidance and expert advice on delivery of funding opportunities to increase accommodation and support options that will prevent young people from becoming homeless, and to support move on from rough sleeping.
7. Developing work to ensure local authorities have joint housing protocols and procedures in place to deliver and go beyond statutory duties for young people age 16/17, looked after young people preparing to leave care, and care experienced young adults who become homeless or are threatened with homelessness.
8. Supporting implementation of improved data collection, as well as learning from experience around the country to inform on-going policy development
9. Delivering presentations, workshops and events, identifying and disseminating good practice information and advice.
10. Effective recording and sharing of key information to support programme management and policy development.

Person specification

The successful candidate will:

1. A minimum of 2 years experience working at a senior level with local authority homelessness and children’s services; and working with partners, to design and deliver services that prevent homelessness and improve housing outcomes for vulnerable young people, including those with care experience
2. Be an expert and leader in youth homelessness, with a clear understanding of the factors which contribute to young people and those with care experience becoming homeless, with a proven track record in developing and delivering services which effectively prevent homelessness and support vulnerable young people to improve their outcomes.
3. Have comprehensive operational knowledge and understanding of housing and social care legislation, statutory guidance, and policy and practice relating to young people’s homelessness in England; and an ability to advise local authority staff to meet and go beyond their statutory duties to prevent and relieve youth homelessness, and achieve successful transitions for care experienced young people.
4. Have knowledge and understanding of how accommodation and support options for young people are developed, funded and delivered by local areas.
5. Have excellent knowledge and understanding of local government, key partners and stakeholders, their roles and interests, and the operational and political context in which services are provided to young people at risk of homelessness.
6. Have excellent communication and interpersonal skills, including ability to motivate and inspire individuals and groups and to support the development of partnerships around shared commitments to improve outcomes.
7. Have strong verbal, written and presentation skills including the ability to present on behalf of government at conferences and events.
8. Have proven ability to successfully deliver a large scale project and programme to reduce homelessness and improve accommodation outcomes for young people, collate and analyse data, and draft reports on programme outputs and achievements
9. Have an excellent understanding of equality and diversity and issues surrounding disadvantage and discrimination, and the ability to advise and support local authorities to provide excellent customer care to all sections of their community.
10. Have experience of working within a political environment, providing advice and guidance to Elected Members/Boards and Senior Leadership Teams.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £51,934, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities contributes £14,022 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

We are for everyone 

 At DLUHC we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce. We promote equality of opportunity in all aspects of employment and a working environment free from discrimination, harassment, bullying and victimisation. 

  

We would strongly recommend that applicants get in touch with the vacancy manager to find out more information about this role.  

 We are for everyone 

 DLUHC want to bring in a diverse workforce at all levels.  

 Our application system is designed to remove as much bias as possible from the recruitment system – this means that a hiring manager does not know your name, your details, see your whole application in one go (or have your CV at review stage unless stated otherwise).  

 

At application stage you will be asked to upload a CV document. Unless stated otherwise in the advert, your CV will not form part of the assessment but will be used for information purposes and only shared with the panel at interview stage. 

 

Your answers are randomised and chunked up. This means that each assessor views sets of responses to questions for example all candidates’ responses to ‘Seeing the Big Picture’ rather than seeing a candidate’s full application. The science behind this is that recruitment can be subject to ordering and fatigue effects and we want to reduce this as much as possible.  

 

Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that each of your answers would be viewed by different assessors. 

 

When writing your application, remember: 

• The assessor won’t be reading your answers sequentially.  
• Do not assume that the same assessors will have read all of your answers.  
• If talking about something in your first answer, make sure that you write the second answer as if you had not written the first (and so on!) 

 

 

At sift, we will be assessing 

 

Behaviour 1- Seeing The Big Picture: What do you see as the top 3 challenges for local areas working to prevent vulnerable young people from becoming homeless?

 

Behaviour 2 - Changing and Improving: Please give an example of a piece of work you have led that has achieved sustainable improvements in service delivery and outcomes for vulnerable young people at risk of homelessness

 

Technical:  How can joint protocols/procedures help prevent young people from becoming homeless?

 

Experience (lead Sift) - Please set out how you meet the person specification requirements on experience, which includes having a minimum of 2 years’ experience working at a senior level with local authority homelessness and children’s services, and working with partners, to prevent homelessness and improve housing outcomes for vulnerable young people, including those with care experience.

 

There is a 250 word limit per question. 

 

The interview will be of a blended nature consisting of the following success profiles elements:    

Behaviour – Changing and Improving, Making Effective Decisions, Leadership, Communicating and Influencing, Working Together. 

Technical - Yes

Strength - The strength based questions will require natural responses from the candidates.  

The strength based questions will require natural responses from the candidates.  

Candidates will be expected to prepare a presentation one hour before the interview and delivered to the panel. More details on this will be sent along with the interview invitations. 

In the full campaign we will test the below Success Profile Elements: 

Behaviours: Changing and Improving, Making Effective Decisions, Leadership, Communicating and Influencing, Working Together, Seeing the big picture

Technical: Yes

Strengths: Yes

 

We do not consider direct CV applications to our Recruitment mailbox – you must apply for this role via the application link on Civil Service Jobs 

Please note that near miss offers may be made at the lower grade to candidates who do not meet the grade criteria for this campaign. 

 

Grade 7 salary 

• The posts can be offered as a secondment on existing salary, or as a permanent contract 
  within the salary ranges £51,934 - £61,562 (National) and £57,091- £66,677 (London) depending on location and experience. For existing civil servants, standard terms and conditions on lateral transfer and promotion will apply.

 
Please note that the average employer pension contribution is based upon the National minimum salary for this role. Should your agreed starting salary for this role be different, the average employer pension contribution will be calculated accordingly. If you are a Secondee, this will not apply as you will remain on your home organisation’s terms and conditions.   

BENEFITS: 

Transfers across the Civil Service on or after 4 October 2018: 
Any move to DLUHC from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk 

For further information about the benefits available to DLUHC employees, please see the attached Candidate Pack. 

  

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION: 

• Manchester
• Wolverhampton 
• Darlington* 
• Leeds

 

There may be opportunities for candidates to work flexibly depending on the business needs. This will be discussed with the vacancy manager on a case-by-case basis if you are successful for the role. 

*Please note: The Darlington Economic Campus (DEC) is a pioneering new cross-government hub which will bring together people across departments and public organisations to play an active role in the most important economic issues of the day. The work of the Campus will make a real difference to people both across the UK and internationally. There will be substantial career opportunities and exciting prospects - a career at the Campus means you will be working at the heart of Government, with access to the benefits and fantastic opportunities offered by the civil service.  

For further information on the DEC, please take a look at the attached DEC candidate pack. 

 

SIFT AND INTERVIEW DATES: 

Sifting is envisaged to take place W/C  1/3/2024 with interview dates to be confirmed. All interviews are currently being held remotely via videocall. 

 

Reserve List 
 
In the event that we identify more appointable candidates than we currently have posts available, we will hold applicant details in a reserve list for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. This may include roles at a lower grade. Candidates placed on a reserve list will be informed of this. Those candidates who do not wish to remain on the reserve list should contact recruitment@levellingup.gov.uk to be removed from the reserve list. 

 

Candidate Pack Information 

Please see attached Candidate pack for further information. 

Before starting your application it’s very important to make sure that you are eligible to apply and meet the Civil Service nationality requirements. All candidates are expected to read the information provided in the DLUHC candidate pack regarding nationality requirements and rules 

 

Internal Fraud Database 

The Internal Fraud function of the Fraud, Error, Debt and Grants Function at the Cabinet Office processes details of civil servants who have been dismissed for committing internal fraud, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned. The Cabinet Office receives the details from participating government organisations of civil servants who have been dismissed, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned, for internal fraud. In instances such as this, civil servants are then banned for 5 years from further employment in the civil service. The Cabinet Office then processes this data and discloses a limited dataset back to DLUHC as a participating government organisations. DLUHC then carry out the pre employment checks so as to detect instances where known fraudsters are attempting to reapply for roles in the civil service. In this way, the policy is ensured and the repetition of internal fraud is prevented.  

For more information please see- Internal Fraud Register 

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. 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

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). 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. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.