Sustaining Communities Officer

Overview

Location:

Dumfries & Galloway – Home based, with regular travel across the region. This role will primarily cover the West of the region, specifically postcode areas DG5, DG6, DG7, DG8 and DG9.

Hours:

35 hours each week, worked Monday to Friday. Fixed term contract to end of February 2028.

Loreburn is a registered social landlord (RSL) and Scottish Charity, with 2,700 homes across Dumfries & Galloway. Established more than 40 years ago, our vision and mission is to ‘create great places to live’ by providing good quality, well maintained, and affordable homes.

As a community-based association, we place our tenant facing services at the heart of the communities we serve. Our ‘Hub, Home & Roam’ working model allows our team to work flexibly, ensuring they can be where they’re most needed, supported by the right tools and resources to deliver on our commitments to tenants and communities.

Funded via the National Lottery, the postholder will operate in the West of Dumfries & Galloway, working alongside a colleague in the East of the region. The Sustaining Communities Officer will form part of the Housing Services team and align with Loreburn’s operational directives.

This position will play a key role within the community, working directly with people who require assistance and guidance to sustain their tenancy whether they are moving into their first home or have had a change of circumstances. This could relate to benefit maximisation, obtaining essential items, reducing social isolation, tackling energy debt, or identifying relevant support options.

Partnership working, collaboration, signposting, and effective communication are vital elements of the role, liaising with various agencies to achieve positive results for the customer.

The role requires someone who is highly organised and IT proficient, who can manage changing priorities and work effectively both independently and as part of a team.

Regular travel within the region is a necessary part of this role.

What’s really important is that you have a strong commitment to excellent service delivery and are highly organised in your approach. Experience in a similar role would be an advantage and IT skills across a range of packages are essential.

The ideal candidate will:

• Have knowledge of the housing sector.
• Be comfortable working with a high degree of autonomy.
• Have a thorough understanding of Welfare Benefits.
• Be highly organised with excellent time management skills and the ability to plan tasks and projects.
• Be ICT proficient, particularly across Microsoft packages.
• Be confident to take ownership of issues and proactively seek solutions.
• Have excellent collaboration skills and be able to form strong working partnerships.
• Have experience of planning and delivering group sessions.
• Be able to produce detailed and accurate reports of activities.
• The ability to work from home in a suitable space, along with access to broadband is essential. As an agile role, a driving licence and access to a vehicle will also be necessary.

• Competitive pay and rewards
• Matched pension contributions up to 8% and life cover of 3 x salary
• Salary sacrifice options for pension contributions
• 8 weeks paid holiday (pro-rata) which includes 12 fixed public holidays and a Christmas closure
• Wellbeing Time – alternative to a 34-hour week. Staff have 49 hours (pro-rata) throughout the year to offer greater flexibility and support to health and work/life balance
• Westfield Health Plan – contributions towards a range of services including dental, optical, therapies, counselling and wellbeing services
• Employee discounts including Blue Light card, cashback and high street retail and gym discounts
• Family friendly policies
• Flexible working and a Hub, Home and Roam working model
• Support for continuous professional development and protected learning time
• Strong values-based culture offering autonomy and empowerment
• Long service rewards
• Professional fees - Loreburn will reimburse one set of annual fees paid by employees for membership of professional institutions when such membership is directly relevant to our work