Head of Property Maintenance Improvement WCC620459

Job Details:

Salary range: £76,554 to £85,413 per annum 
Work location: Westminster City Hall, 64 Victoria Street, Westminster, SW1E 6QP 
Hours per week: 36 
Contract type: Permanent
Closing date: 7 April 2025

About Us:

THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF KATE’S PASSION FOR NUMBERS AND PEOPLE

Housing in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories. Where dedicated and compassionate professionals bring everything to their work. 

Take Kate, an absolute wizard at managing housing asset data for our annual £50m capital programme. Kate’s an inspiration to her team. Now a senior manager, she first joined as a college leaver in finance. Through Westminster’s encouragement, as well as her own hard work and determination, she’s gained professional qualifications and taken on a series of increasingly stretching roles.  

Today, we depend on Kate’s analytical powers to keep track of the condition of over 21,000 of our tenanted and leasehold homes – from roofs and windows to kitchens and bathrooms. Kate’s committed to achieving the Decent Homes Standard for all our tenants and a high standard for all our leaseholders. Her passion is numbers but, because she grew up in social housing, she also understands the human stories behind the data. 

More than that she understands the disruption renewal work entails. So when an elderly resident’s family mentioned that their mother needed not just a new kitchen, but adaptations to her bathroom, Kate got right on to it. She co-ordinated with colleagues to assess the resident’s disability needs. 

Kate’s worked hard to ensure our routine external and internal stock condition surveys pick up on repairs and health & safety issues at the same time. And, by recognising patterns in the data that’s gathered, she makes a vital contribution to forward planning for large-scale capital renewal works. 

The Role:

As our Head of Property Maintenance Improvement within our high-profile Housing Services, you can make your own powerful contribution by helping us deliver an even better repair and minor works service to our residents, ensuring that their homes are being well-maintained. 

Working in our fast-paced environment in which no two days are ever the same, you will guide a multi-disciplinary team of people who are determined to make a difference to our community. With a focus on delivering a great customer experience to every resident, you will strive to improve and develop our repairs and repair-related service (which also includes complaints and disrepairs), so that around 21,000 mixed-tenure properties are benefitting from an effective service. Seeing to it that repairs are carried out quickly and to the highest standards, you will have a laser focus on achieving value for money, so you will also have tight control of a large budget (with contracts valued at around £8million). 

Working closely with residents and resident groups to understand their priorities and tailor the service according to their input, you will see to it that any learnings from resident data and feedback are translated into achievable actions and programmes of work. Collaborating with Surveyors and Contractors to identify opportunities for improvement, we will expect you to drive new ways of working, and champion an accountable culture in which everyone takes responsibility for their part in raising standards. You will also define strategic and operational partnerships, so there is immense scope to explore innovative approaches that will make a significant impact on the quality of our residents’ homes.

Please refer to the Job Description for more information.

About You:

The successful delivery of our repairs service is vital to maintaining and enhancing the Council’s reputation. We want to secure consistently exceptional customer feedback, so you will need to share our vision of securing a Fairer Westminster. This will include embracing our determination to tackle homelessness and overcrowding, ensuring everyone has a well-managed, environmentally-sound and affordable home.  

As such, you will be a qualified member of a relevant professional organisation (such as MRICS or MCIOB) and we will expect you to have significant experience of managing standard construction contracts (including JCT and TPC) for a large-scale repair and maintenance service. Crucially, you will be vigilant in meeting KPIs without exceeding your budget, so good financial skills and commercial awareness will be essential to your success.

 
With a busy workload that will need careful prioritisation, you will be comfortable setting up and managing systems for the regular inspection of a large portfolio of residential properties. With good technical awareness, you will be able to diagnose defects and specify remedial works, and you will have experience of managing minor building works projects. With the capacity to device systems for the quality control of completed works and investigate complaints, you will be determined to work in collaboration with individual residents and groups of residents to ensure their feedback is taken on board. 

As an inspirational leader who can recruit, manage and develop technical staff, you will promote an inclusive and supportive working environment in which your colleagues enjoy coming to work. You will therefore bring a flexible approach to every situation, and your communication skills will be matched by your ability to influence and engage with others.

Westminster City Council is committed to supporting Care Leavers into the workplace. Care Leavers seeking their first job and who wish to be considered under our scheme, will automatically be invited to interview should they meet the essential criteria for the role.

The Council is committed to achieving diverse shortlists to support our desire to increase the number of staff from underrepresented groups in our workforce. We especially encourage applications from a Global Majority (GM), people who are Black, Asian, Brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south, and or have been racialised as 'ethnic minorities' (formally known as B.A.M.E , Black, Asian and multiple ethnic) background and, while the role is open to all applicants, we will utilise the positive action provisions of the Equality Act 2010 to appoint a candidate from a global majority background where there is a choice between two candidates of equal merit. If you are from a Global Majority background you can self-declare this to the hiring manager as part of our positive action commitments.

What We Offer:

Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. Westminster City Council’s strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city’s future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe.

At Westminster City Council, we pride ourselves on being an inclusive workplace and employer of choice. We encourage and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that, at all levels, represents the communities we serve. We champion equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, has a sense of belonging and is empowered to be their best, that is the Westminster Way. To find out more about how we do this visit  https://www.westminster.gov.uk/health-and-social-care/public-health-strategy-policies-and-reports/equality-duties

As a forward-thinking Council we appreciate that people work in different ways, therefore our staff benefit from working a range of flexible working patterns as well as Agile working.

The Council is a Disability Confident Employer. If you have declared a disability in your application, we guarantee an interview if you meet the essential criteria of the job. If you are invited for interview, you will be asked if you need any reasonable adjustments in order to attend, and we will make these wherever possible.

Please note that we reserve the right to extend or close this vacancy early without warning subject to the volume of suitable applicants, so please do apply at your earliest convenience if you would like to be considered for this career-defining role.