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This special place in South West London between the capital and the country has been a Royal borough longer than anywhere else - it is where the first kings of England were crowned.

Today it is a vibrant and diverse borough, with a long history and strong cultural and community heritage. Kingston's riverside location, fantastic retail offer, historic market place and church, parks and gardens all make Kingston town centre the vibrant space it is, and each of our district town centres (Surbiton, New Malden, Tolworth and Chessington) have something unique to offer.

Situated in Zone 6, Kingston is among the best-connected town centres in London – with direct train links from Kingston and Surbiton stations to Clapham Junction and London Waterloo, as well as Wimbledon for an interchange with the London Underground and Tramlink.

Kingston’s people are innovative and entrepreneurial, and have a strong sense of community pride. The borough has been home to great industry and creativity for many years, reflected in assets such as the Rose Theatre, the International Youth Arts Festival and Kingston University, which boasts more new graduate business start-ups than any other.

We have seen tremendous generosity and compassion within our communities, particularly in response to COVID-19, which is a demonstration of Kingston’s key strength. The council offers a strong level of support to vulnerable groups and those who need additional support, which has also increased significantly as a result of the pandemic. Like most places, the average age of our population is rising as more people are living longer, so we are working closely with residents to help them maintain their independence and further improve the cost effectiveness of our service to meet the ongoing rise in demand.

Kingston is home to people from diverse and interesting cultures and backgrounds, which helps to create the rich sense of community shared across the borough. In particular, Kingston has a large Sri Lankan Tamil community and is home to more people from Korea than any other part of the UK.

As a Communication & Engagement Specialist in the Housing Landlord team, you will manage relationships with residents, staff, contractors and members of The Royal Borough of Kingston in the delivery of council housing services.

In this role, projects you will be working on will be:

• Producing the annual report to residents
• Creating quarterly newsletters
• Designing and delivering material on consulting with residents about hot topics such as repairs, service charges, peer comparisons, Regulatory Standards,
• Delivering the Tenant Satisfaction Surveys

This role is critical to developing positive relationships with residents who are renting or buying their home from the Council. Your day may start with a team catch up online followed by:

• Creating a consultation campaign with colleagues to gain customer feedback about the repairs service.
• Attending a project meeting about the latest newsletter for publication.
• Touching base with one of Kingston contractors about a social value project on one of our estates.
• Liaising with Ward Councillors about estate inspections in their area.
• Ensuring staff feel confident about using the Photobook App.

We are a hybrid working organisation and the expectation for this role is to attend either the Guildhall Complete in Kingston or on site two days a week. You may work remotely for the remainder of the week but the option to come into the office is always there.

Council housing is set to grow at Kingston with the regeneration of the Cambridge Road Estate and delivering new homes in the Borough.

You will join a team of housing professionals making a positive difference to the people living in Kingston Council’s 6000 tenancies and homes. We work collaboratively across a wide range of corporate services . We are starting our journey to enhance the customer experience online with investment in a new Housing System that will offer customers easy access for routine transactions.

We are a team of multi-talented and experienced housing professionals working together to deliver services to residents who are most in need of help and support.

We are looking for someone with a track record of successful delivery of communication and engagement campaigns, engaging with harder to reach groups, listening and engaging with customers in the design, delivery and accountability for services or products. You will also need the following:

• Educated to degree level or equivalent.
• Experience commercial or not for profit business in a similar role.
• Confident public speaker and presenter digitally and face to face.
• Confident in using new technology and social media.
• Research and report writing skills.
• Resilient in the face of challenge and adversity.
• Able to represent the Council positively in a range of meetings and events.
• Able to design and deliver communications in a range of formats that appeal to customers, staff and stakeholders.
• Able to work on own initiative and as part of a team.
• Knowledge of social housing.
• Knowledge of customer research methods and analysis.
• Able to work at pace and manage competing priorities and views.
• Be able to work under pressure and to tight timelines
• Be a positive and enthusiastic person
• Be able to build relationships with a wide range of people.

For more information about the role and the structure of the service, please refer to the attachments below.

As an organisation that values and nurtures talent, we’re committed to helping you fulfil your potential and will offer you a supportive, friendly and collaborative environment to grow and develop your career and skills. We’re constantly striving to improve our ways of working so putting your ideas across however big or small; will be fully encouraged and supported by your colleagues and our dynamic and experienced management team.

In addition we offer a modern and flexible working environment for our staff supported by our IT infrastructure, Google Chromebooks and Google Apps, which have acted as a key enabler for collaborative and streamlined working. The COVID-19 pandemic has required us to be even more flexible in how we work and manage staff workloads, ensuring they have the correct equipment and resources to be able to maximise their talents and looking after their wellbeing.

Employees have access to a wide range of benefits, some of which include:

• Generous annual leave entitlement plus bank holidays (pro-rata if part-time working hours apply)
• Three volunteering days per year
• Flexible and agile working arrangements
• Comprehensive learning and development programme
• Discounts on a range of local shops, restaurants, gyms and leisure centres
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Local Government Pension Scheme
• Bicycle loan facilities and cycle to work scheme
• Zip car scheme
• Free eye tests and contribution towards glasses
• Confidential wellbeing and counselling support
• Subsidised gym membership

We pride ourselves on being a diverse, tolerant and welcoming Borough and we aim to create a workforce which reflects the community we serve. We are respectful of difference and realise the positive value of diversity in our workforce. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds and particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates and disabled candidates as these groups are currently under-represented in our workforce.

We are proud to be recognised as a Disability Confident employer, and are committed to thinking differently about disability and taking action to improve how we recruit, retain and develop disabled people. We guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum/essential criteria for the role.

We offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, staff engagement forums, and inclusive staff networks who help drive our diversity agenda.

We are an accredited London Living Wage Employer and this means that everyone working at the Royal Borough of Kingston, regardless of whether they are permanent employees or third-party contractors and suppliers receive the London Living Wage. The real Living Wage is higher than the government’s minimum, or National Living Wage, and is an independently calculated hourly rate of pay that is based on the actual cost of living.

The UK has introduced a new points-based immigration system affecting EU and Non-EU workers and sponsorship requirements. We advise checking the GOV.UK website for right to work guidance.