Overview
Housing Accommodation Support Officer – PO12AL, United Kingdom
Job Category: Housing
Region / Division: UK Region
Location: Civic Offices, Portsmouth
Working Hours: 37
Fixed Term Contract/Secondment until 26th September 2026.
37 hours per week Monday to Friday.
Based at the Civic Offices within the Housing Needs, Advice and Support service. Hybrid working may be considered once fully trained.
Who are we?
Portsmouth City Council’s Housing Needs, Advice & Support Service works directly with customers to help deal with housing issues and prevent homelessness in the city. We are a busy front-line service dealing directly with customers, many of whom are vulnerable. The service assess and advise customers on the Housing Needs, Advice & Support available to them, provide support services to vulnerable people and families, provide temporary accommodation and link with providers to help people move into more permanent accommodation.
The Accommodation team provide the link into accommodation for those that approach the council. This includes temporary accommodation for the homeless and links to external housing providers, including registered providers and private sector landlords, who the council allocates housing to.
What is the role?
- Day to day you will provide a vital role in administrative support to the Housing Needs, Advice & Support team.
- You will be involved in paying invoices, updating systems and spreadsheets.
- Your role will include arranging emergency housing for homeless families with a variety of temporary accommodation providers. You will assist in ensuring the best use of available resources and help to monitor costs and complete Housing Benefit applications.
- You will be required to undertake other admin duties as and when needed to support all our various temporary accommodation types.
- This is a full-time role which will be based in Housing Needs, Advice & Support in the Civic Offices, Guildhall Square, Portsmouth.
Who is the person?
- General office experience and an understanding of working ideally within a busy front-line service
- Good written and verbal communication skills and have an attention to detail
- Relevant experience and knowledge of working within a temporary accommodation service setting
- The ability to converse at ease with customers and provide advice in accurate spoken English is essential for the post
- Good level of IT skills including use of Microsoft Office applications including Word and Excel.
- Works proactively and is able to remain motivated, working on their own initiative and organising their workload to meet deadlines
- Good interpersonal and team working skills
- Good standard of numeracy and literacy as you will be dealing with invoices and correspondence.
If you have any questions regarding this post please contact Laura Brett on 07958 501108 or Nathan White on 023 9268 8786.
When completing the application form, please thoroughly tailor your application to the ‘Who is the Person’ points with the use of examples from your experience. This is really important or you are likely not to be shortlisted. Please see the full job profile attached at the bottom of this page.
If applying as a secondment, please ensure you have your line managers permission before applying and please state this in your application.
About Portsmouth City Council
What we can offer you:
Portsmouth City Council is a unique organisation, committed to making a difference, and is guided by core values that set who we are as people, what we stand for, and how we act.
Read more about working at Portsmouth City Council and our benefits on our careers portal homepage: Careers Portal – Find jobs with Portsmouth City Council
Should you require any support in completing the application form please contact recruit@portsmouthcc.gov.uk. or call the recruitment team on 023 92 616800
