Assistant Director Housing

Welcome from Nic Harne

Welcome, and thank you for your interest in joining North Yorkshire Council as our new Assistant Director of Housing.

As Corporate Director of Community Development, I believe this is an exceptional opportunity for an experienced and highly capable housing leader to join us at a pivotal moment. Housing is one of the most high‑profile and closely scrutinised areas in local government and the context in North Yorkshire is both uniquely challenging and rewarding. Three years on from Local Government Reorganisation (LGR), we have made significant progress in our improvement and integration journey and can provide a great platform from which to continue to build and achieve.

You will be joining geographically the largest and one of the highest performing councils in the country, providing the opportunity to work at scale, with complexity and ambition. We have been named the third most productive local authority in the country by the IMPOWER Index, which measures the performance of councils based on outcomes delivered for every pound spent. The highest ranking in the North of England, the result is being seen as evidence that the move to create a single unitary authority for North Yorkshire is paying off.

A major focus for this role will be the leadership of landlord services, an area that has grown rapidly in importance as national regulatory standards continue to evolve. Our ongoing engagement with the regulator reflects our commitment to continuous improvement and to delivering the highest possible outcomes for our tenants. This is an area where resilient, confident and experienced leadership will make a really positive impact.

In practice, landlord services now represent an important and exciting area of strategic and operational focus. The service brings together a wide and diverse workforce delivering frontline housing management, tenant involvement, sheltered housing, repairs and maintenance, compliance and asset management across more than 8,500 council homes. As we continue to align with evolving regulatory expectations, we are strengthening and modernising the service to support even greater clarity, accountability and strategic direction. This includes progressing plans to enhance our repairs and maintenance and asset management functions, alongside investment in modern systems, improved ways of working and ongoing service transformation.

At the same time, you will join a housing service with much to be proud of. Our homelessness, housing renewal and strategic teams are well established and continue to deliver high‑quality services, from private sector enforcement to supported housing improvements and housing development. Significant opportunities lie ahead including decarbonisation programmes and new council house building, as well as expanding our rural housing initiatives and using our healthy Housing Revenue Account to drive sustainable investment. We are fortunate enough to have the budget and the resources to deliver on our ambitions.

Whilst a lot of the ground has been laid in the three years since LGR, there is still much to do. This means that the role offers an exciting leadership opportunity to shape a large and complex housing service, bring people with you through continued cultural and operational change and drive improvements that will directly benefit our residents.

You will also work closely with colleagues across the council, with partners across the region and with the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority as new powers and investment opportunities develop.

You will drive forward our Housing ambition framed through three key themes: Our People, Our Places, Our Homes. The main priorities are to prevent homelessness, grow affordable supply, improve stock quality and energy performance and to be an exemplar social landlord.

We are a council that is prepared to make the bold decisions, such as charging an additional rate for second homes Council Tax and reinvesting the income into housing initiatives, delivering a £40m housing investment programme and building an additional 500 council homes.

I am looking for a strategic, resilient and forward‑thinking leader — someone who understands the realities of landlord services, can navigate regulatory expectations with confidence and can inspire a large and diverse workforce. You will need to be politically astute, collaborative and able to “hit the ground running” in an environment where expectations are high and the pace of change is significant. In return, you will join a committed and supportive team, working in a modern, hybrid way across a county that blends national level strategic importance with a high quality of place.

We provide a solid base for you to build your career:

• high‑performing authority including Children’s Services assessed as Outstanding by Ofsted and share their practice nationally, Health and Adult services that have one of the highest scores from recent CQC inspections, plus many innovation awards for our technological advancements
• the stunning backdrop of North Yorkshire, one of the most desirable places in the country
• unparalleled quality of life in a county rich with culture, heritage and landscape
• the chance to shape a new council - your way, in a place where housing underpins our critical ambitions
• operate at scale and depth across a varied portfolio of services, beyond a ‘typical’ housing role
• you will be welcomed by a strong leadership team and political leadership, together with talented teams

This role is an ideal platform for emerging Housing leaders and those aspiring to be future Directors.

If you are excited by the opportunity to shape and strengthen a housing service at such a crucial point in its development, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Nic Harne, Corporate Director of Community Development

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About the service

The Council Plan 2025–2029 states that housing is central to our ambitions for Thriving Places, Sustainable and Connected Communities, Safe and Healthy Lives and Strong Local Services. This includes managing 8,300 plus council homes, delivering 800 affordable homes per year and building 500 new council homes. The Corporate Property Strategy 2025–2035 supports this by adopting a Corporate Landlord model, reducing carbon emissions, optimising the estate and releasing strategic land for regeneration and housing.

The plan is to deliver the following:

• prevent homelessness and reduce rough sleeping
• expand affordable and council housing
• improve the quality and safety of existing homes
• strengthen compliance and service standards
• modernise systems and governance

Against this backdrop, the housing service is framed by three themes: Our People, Our Places, Our Homes. The main priorities are to prevent homelessness, grow affordable supply (including the creation of new council housing), improve stock quality and energy performance and to be an exemplar social landlord.

• Our People. We aim to prevent and tackle homelessness, meet needs at different life stages (ranging from young households to an ageing population) and expand supported options for groups such as care leavers, veterans and refugees. We will seek to integrate prevention and support, maintain a countywide allocations policy and strengthen pathways with Health and Social Care
   
• Our Places. We will address severe affordability pressures and rural housing challenges, partly through the delivery of at least 2,500 new homes, including a minimum of 800 affordable homes every year, working with the York & North Yorkshire Housing Partnership, Homes England and the Mayoral Combined Authority. We are also planning to build 500 new council homes over the next five years and will review council land to unlock delivery, with a strong focus on rural/park areas and market towns
   
• Our Homes. We plan to decarbonise stock (aiming for EPC C baseline and aspiring to EPC A/B where feasible), use planning/standards to ensure new supply supports net zero and raise quality across tenures through enforcement and targeted retrofit—recognising older, inefficient private stock and fuel poverty risks. We will ensure Decent Homes compliance, eradicate damp and mould and align services with the Regulator of Social Housing

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Service improvement and regulatory compliance

Our Housing Improvement Strategy 2025–2030 sets out seven major improvement areas:

• stronger governance and oversight
• better knowledge of stock condition
• improved safety and compliance
• better understanding of tenant needs
• a more effective repairs and maintenance service
• safer neighbourhoods, including better ASB and domestic abuse responses
• fairer and more consistent allocations and tenancy management

The strategy includes major stock condition surveys, a modernised asset management system, policy alignment across the new unitary authority, improved complaints handling and stronger tenant involvement.

Homelessness and rough sleeping

The Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy (2025–2030) sets out to make homelessness rare, brief and not repeated. It focuses on four main areas:

1. Preventing homelessness earlier and more consistently.
2. Increasing access to suitable accommodation.
3. Improving support for people who are homeless or at risk.
4. Reducing rough sleeping.

The strategy strengthens early help approaches, improves the duty to refer and commits to a consistent customer journey across the county. It also expands trauma‑informed, Housing First‑style services such as REACH (Scarborough) and SAFE (Harrogate).

Temporary and supported accommodation

We are investing £11.6 million in a four‑year programme to improve temporary accommodation. This will create 116 new bedspaces by 2027, reducing reliance on hotels and B&Bs and providing better‑quality, more suitable housing across the county.

A separate supported housing programme - funded partly through up to £12 million from the second homes Council Tax premium - includes a proposed 20‑bed ‘Place of Change’ for people facing multiple disadvantage.

Financing delivery

The housing revenue account supports compliance, repairs, IT and asset modernisation and future stock growth - including a target of 500 new council homes.

Key financial elements include:

• modelling rent increases under the national CPI plus 1% formula (from April 2026)
• reintroducing rent convergence
• short‑term HRA deficits moving to surplus from 2028/29
• additional £13.76 million revenue and £8 million capital for stabilisation and compliance improvements

Examples of our work:

Father’s delight as house alterations help ‘transform’ son’s life

Hear our teams provide a half year update December 2025 - view the YouTube video

Tenant involvement team wins top award: Winner of the North Yorkshire Creative Award

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About the role

Title: Assistant Director Housing
Salary: £111,533 to £119,774 plus relocation support
Location: Northallerton, hybrid – countywide

The role provides strategic, operational and financial leadership for our housing service, ensuring high quality delivery across all statutory housing functions.

As a senior leader within the Community Development Directorate, the Assistant Director plays a key corporate role alongside Management Board colleagues, contributing to our overall strategic leadership and ongoing transformation. The role discharges statutory duties relating to homelessness, allocations, private sector housing, housing adaptations, home energy efficiency and landlord services for council homes. It ensures strong performance, innovation, customer focus and legislative compliance across all service areas.

The role is responsible for the management, maintenance and continuous improvement of our housing stock - ensuring its sustainability, regulatory compliance and alignment with the region’s current and future housing needs. It leads the development of a robust and up to date housing strategy and works closely with planning and regeneration colleagues to support wider place making and community development ambitions.

The post has significant operational oversight, including co ordinating service priorities, leading service development and transformation programmes, resolving complaints, maximising commercial opportunities and advising on legislation and service matters. It holds responsibility for budget management, stewardship of assets, workforce leadership and health and safety across the housing service.

Effective partnership working is central to the role. The Assistant Director builds strong relationships with Elected Members, partners, contractors, communities and external agencies to enhance our reputation and deliver improved outcomes. As part of the Directorate Management Team, the role contributes to corporate planning, policy alignment, organisational culture development and the delivery of high quality, efficient and financially sustainable services for residents.

The post carries responsibilities for communication and engagement, safeguarding, emergency planning and the oversight of data, systems and reporting. It is politically restricted under the Local Government and Housing Act 1989.

Key documents

• housing and homelessness
• housing policies and strategies
•  housing strategy 2024 to 2029 (pdf / 7 MB)
• housing standards enforcement policy
•  homelessness and rough sleeping strategy 2025 to 2030 (pdf / 16 MB)
• corporate property strategy 2025-2035
• council plan
•  job description (pdf / 336 KB)

Learn more about our organisation’s structure and responsibilities on our role, structure and objectives page.

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Why work for us

We are strong performing authority, with supportive political leadership and talented teams providing the platform to have a fulfilling, challenging and successful career in a truly stunning place.

A peer challenge found that the council is a good place to work, with strong leadership and a loyal and committed workforce who have access to well-regarded training and development.

We pride ourselves on being an employer of choice, offering a range of training and development opportunities and career progression allowing you to manage your own development journey and empowering you to control your career. Your career can change with your life here in North Yorkshire.

We positively encourage flexible working and we provide you with the technology you need to work from a wide variety of locations.

We believe in the importance of inclusion, which is why we are always working towards being a more diverse, equitable and inclusive employer. Find out more about our equality, diversity and inclusion work on our working for us page. You can bring your whole self to work and we will support you to be the best that you can be.

Our values, behaviours and ambitions underpin everything we do.

In addition to your salary, we offer a range of great benefits to help you financially make life a bit easier. These include:

• a local government, career average employer contribution pension scheme
• family friendly leave
• salary sacrifice schemes
• modern flexible working practices
• learning and development packages
• career advancement opportunities
• employee discount benefits including shopping and gym discounts
• green car and cycle schemes
• travel loans

You can find more information on the range of benefits we offer on our total rewards page.

Our relocation package

If you are considering relocating to North Yorkshire we provide a comprehensive relocation benefits package.

This features up to £8,000 to cover reasonable costs such as:

• removal expenses
• storage costs
• legal and estate agent fees
• travelling expenses

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Living and working in North Yorkshire

North Yorkshire is a thriving county that adapts to a changing world and remains a special place to live and work.

North Yorkshire's natural beauty is captured in its three areas of Outstanding Natural Parks, National Nature Reserves, stunning coastlines, scenic rural villages, vibrant cities and market towns. North Yorkshire really is a beautiful, thriving and special place to live and work, rich in heritage and culture.

North Yorkshire features significantly in the best places to live in the UK across all quality-of-life indicators and is the safest place in England with extremely low crime rates.

In addition, the county benefits from excellent road and rail links, with easy access via the east coast mainline, the A1(M) and A19. Leeds, York, Newcastle, Durham and Teesside are all easily commutable and London and Edinburgh are just two hours away by train.

From its lively cities to pretty villages, rolling countryside and grand coastline, North Yorkshire has so much to offer including great employment opportunities for your family members, along with a higher proportion of schools which are good or outstanding compared to national figures.

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You can find out more about what North Yorkshire has to offer on the Visit North Yorkshire  website.

Watch this video to see more of what North Yorkshire has to offer.

Key dates

Closing date: Midnight Sunday 10 May
Assessment event: Friday 22 May - in person at the offices of North Yorkshire Council, Northallerton
Final interview: Wednesday 3 June - in person at the offices of North Yorkshire Council, Northallerton

Contact us and apply

For an informal confidential discussion about this opportunity, please contact:

Charlotte Wilkinson

• 07483 103301
• charlotte.wilkinson@northyorks.gov.uk

Penny Keatings

• 07811 411462
• penny.keatings@northyorks.gov.uk

We believe in the importance of inclusion, which is why we are always working towards being a more diverse, equitable and inclusive employer. You can find out more about our equality, diversity and inclusion work on our working for us page.

To apply, send us your CV and a supporting statement in one Microsoft Word document to Executive.ResourcingSolutions@northyorks.gov.uk. Do not send PDF's.

We will remove your personal details from your application to enable anonymised shortlisting. This is why it is important that you send your application as a single Microsoft Word document.

Make sure your application fully addresses the experience criteria in the person specification.

You must also include:

• your contact details including email address, telephone and address
• your full employment history including names of your employers and your job titles, dates of employment and salaries
• your full education history including your qualifications, grades and dates and places of study
• explanations for any gaps in your employment
• contact details for at least two referees including your current or most recent employer and whether you content to us contacting your referees before interview
• details of your current salary and notice period

This is a politically restricted post.

We are committed to directly recruiting staff and will not accept applications nor services from agency suppliers.