Resident Engagement Officer WCC620438

Job Details:

Salary range: £41,580 - £55,710 per annum 
Work location: Westminster City Hall, 64 Victoria Street, Westminster, SW1E 6QP 
Hours per week: 36 
Contract type: 2x Temporary up to 12 months   
Closing date: 13 April 2025
Interview date: Week commencing 21 April 2025

About Us:

THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM 

Housing and Commercial Partnerships in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories. Where people use their vision and commitment to open doors for the next generations. 

Nothing beats the feeling of helping someone find their passion. At Westminster City Council, our City Lions team helps young local people engage with culture, creativity and dreams. When they came across a lonely, isolated 16-year-old who called himself a failure, they knew what to do. They worked 1-2-1 to find the thing this boy really loved. YouTube, it turned out. But it’s impossible to turn that into a career, right? Wrong. A week later, he was enrolled on the British Film Institute film-making programme. It was the ultimate light-bulb moment. And it turned him into what he is today – a budding Spielberg with a world of opportunity at his feet. 

Please view the extraordinary story of the Impossible Dream here.

The Role:

As Our Resident Engagement Officer, you can make your own powerful contribution by ensuring residents’ opinions are embedded in every decision we make within the Housing Service. 

When we are considering changes to our services or policies, it’s imperative that we have an extensive range of resident opinions to help us make the most effective decisions. You will be integral to this mission as you seek to maximise resident involvement in our engagement groups and associations. 

Making sure that each of these groups (plus any new groups that are formed) are sustainable and representative of their communities, you will seek to connect with people from all walks of life. Some of these groups have been established for a long time, so you will sensitively identify how you can recognise the contribution of longstanding members, while carefully integrating new members into their midst.

Working with colleagues to understand the issues they need to explore, you will guide them on how best to elicit the relevant insight and opinions via creative community outreach and engagement activities. That might mean creating publicity materials to promote face-to-face events such as family fun days and gardening activities, devising digital surveys and running meetings and consultation events. Whatever the event or activity, you will either be the lead organiser, or you will be part of a steering group, so you will be ready to handle everything from securing funding through to making venue and entertainment bookings. 

Across all that you do, you will be mindful that we need to hear from everyone who is affected by a proposal, so you will often need to adapt your approach depending on who you are working with, ensuring good governance is being applied at all times. Crucially, you will ensure that residents know that their feedback has been valuable, by demonstrating to them how it has been used and responded to. 

As this role sits within the wider Resident Engagement and Advocacy service, you will also have the opportunity to help the team on their ad hoc projects. 

Please refer to our Job Description for more information. 

About You:

This is an exciting opportunity to join a high profile service, and take part in the most fulfilling work. We work at pace, so to be equal to the role you will have a background in event management and delivery, with experience of working with residents or community groups. Ideally you will have some experience of working in a social housing or local authority setting, and you will enjoy collaborating with colleagues and stakeholders to achieve shared objectives. 

With the flexibility to work occasional evenings and weekends, you will thrive in this role if you are tenacious with great communication and organisation skills. The flexibility to adapt your approach according to who you’re connecting with will be essential, and you will have the ability to quickly identify and resolve problems. Good budgeting, project and programme management skills will also be important, and you’ll be capable of working with document management systems. 

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.

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.  

We reserve the right to extend or close this vacancy early without warning subject to the volume of suitable applicants, so do consider applying as soon as possible if you would like to embrace a uniquely varied role.