Why Join Ardenglen Housing Association?

Let’s start with the important stuff.

• Salary Range: £29,086 - £32,324 (Grade 5)
• 8 Weeks Annual Leave Including Public Holidays
• Hybrid and Flexible Working Environment
• Learning and Development Culture
• Family Friendly Policies
• Teambuilding Sessions
• Lunch and Learns
• Health and Wellbeing Initiatives
• Counselling Service
• Professional Membership Fees

Who Are Ardenglen?

Established in 1990, Ardenglen was initially set up to provide community-led action to reverse poor housing conditions and neighbourhood decline in East Castlemilk, situated in the south of Glasgow. Today, we are a leading not-for-profit landlord providing high quality homes and services in the area, where we own and manage approximately 1000 properties.

Our long-term vision is to transform communities by providing aspirational homes and services, to enhance the quality of life of our customers. In order to achieve this, we are currently focusing on consolidating and improving our services, improving opportunities for local people and seeking modest growth where available.

In 2020, we were proudly crowned Housing Association of the year at the Scottish Home Awards and with our Investors in People accreditation, we believe that now is an exciting time to be joining the organisation.

Culture and Values at Ardenglen

At Ardenglen, our people are at the forefront of what we do. We encourage a close-knit working culture where our employee’s feel a sense of belonging. As a charitable organisation, our people are passionate about what we do and so it is important to us that we continue building that culture as we recruit. Such ethos is underpinned by our core values:

• Customer and Community Focused: customer and community is the focus of all that we do
• Accountable: we take ownership and deliver on our promises
• Making a Difference: we deliver more than just housing by supporting our customers to access the services that they need
• Innovative: we challenge the status quo and provide an environment which enables creativity
• Equal Access to Services and Opportunities For All: we understand barriers to equality and work tirelessly to remove them
• Treating Our Customers with Respect: we treat our customers with dignity, empathy and respect based on their individual needs

Get a better feel for our culture by watching the video published on our website here - ardenglen.co.uk/our-recruitment

Your Role

It is our objective to deliver first-class customer services to our tenants whilst providing high quality homes, communities and sustainable tenancies. In order to achieve this, we are recruiting for the role of Financial Inclusion & Digital Worker that will be embedded into the Castlemilk Pantry Plus Project, which sits within a longer-term strategic initiative “The Castlemilk Pantry”, which is the responsibility of our Community Investment Team.

In this role you will need experience of delivering effective and efficient Welfare Benefits, Money, Energy and Digital Advice. You will work with our Financial Inclusion Officer to deliver positive outcomes for our Pantry customers, tenants and the wider community.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Welfare Rights; Money; Energy & Digital Advice: To provide customers with advice, support and advocacy on all welfare benefit related matters. Carry out thorough benefit checks to ensure income is fully maximised & assist to make benefit applications as necessary. Assist customers to challenge benefit decisions as appropriate and follow through to appeal stage if necessary.
• Customer Service: provide an excellent, consistent level of service to all customers, listen empathetically to people and identify potential barriers to services.
• Performance: Assist the Community Investment Manager & Director of Customer Services to continually review & develop the advice service. Provide regular reports / statistical information as required.

The full job description and person specification for the post can be found within our recruitment pack here – Vacancies (ardenglen.co.uk)

How to Fit at Ardenglen

We’re building a culture of openness and accountability at Ardenglen, but one where every employee’s voice is heard. We’re therefore looking for someone who is positive and displays integrity, is creative and challenges the status quo, and is adaptable whilst working closely with diverse teams. If that sounds like you, then we’d love to hear from you regarding the experience or awareness you have within the following areas:

• Continuous improvement of best value and quality service provision
• Ability to manage and co-ordinate a complex workload to ensure key outputs are delivered
• Commitment to the core values of Ardenglen Housing Association

Atrium Homes, based in Kilmarnock, is a Registered Social Landlord and Scottish Charity providing social housing to over 1,200 households; factoring services are provided to Atrium Homes by its subsidiary as well as to over 1,400 owners.

Collectively, the Board is responsible for exercising scrutiny, establishing organisational strategy and objectives and for monitoring operational performance, and we are currently looking to strengthen our overall governance through the appointment of a small number of Board Members.

We are always looking out for new Board members to help us achieve the right mix of skills and experience to match our business needs. Skills and knowledge that we would love to see further represented on our Board just now include an experienced Finance Professional or a business leader interested in the work of social landlords.

Equally, we are always very keen to attract people who have had experience of our services as customers and who are committed to helping us improve those services.

What is most important to us is that Board members share our core values and objectives, possess an inquiring mind and demonstrate a willingness to challenge.

All positions are voluntary but reasonable expenses to facilitate attendance at meetings will be paid. Induction and further training will also be provided.

You can also find out more about our activities by vising our website atrium-homes.co.uk or the SHR website housingregulator.gov.scot

Do you have an interest in the supply and provision of new homes, supporting communities, charity finance or charity governance? Do you want the opportunity to set strategy, improve your leadership skills, and make a difference to local communities? If you do, we would be very interested in hearing from you.

The Association owns and rents over 2,000 social rented homes in the Angus and Dundee area. We are a registered Charity regulated by both OSCR and the Scottish Housing Regulator and have a staff team of around 50. Our Board of Management members are all volunteers and we value their time and commitment to deliver our aims. You will be reimbursed for out of pocket expenses.

Who we're looking for:

We welcome applications from those with a diverse range of backgrounds and experience and we are particularly interested in people with the following skills. There is no requirement to have had any previous Board experience. What is important is that you have the drive and passion to make a difference and that you are prepared to contribute to discussions that enable positive and collective decision making. We would be interested applicants with experience or an interest in:

• construction, design and the built environment/asset management
• renewable technologies/net zero
• human resources and people management

Successful applicants will receive effective induction and will be supported to learn new skills. The Board meetings are usually held on Wednesday mornings. Our full Board of Management meets 6 times a year. We have 4 sub committees that meet quarterly for Finance, Audit & Risk, Service Delivery, Development and Remuneration. Typically, Board members are on one of the sub committees making the commitment 10 meetings a year. Meetings are normally held in person in Arbroath however we can offer participation using Teams for members who cannot attend in person.

We are excited to have the opportunity to recruit for new trustees to join our Board in 2024.

No previous board experience is necessary as full support and training will be provided.

We are focused on identifying new board members who:

• Are passionate about making our vision of “A Lifetime of equality, respect and love for Care Experienced people” a reality
• Are committed to making a meaningful contribution to fulfilling the Board’s strategic, financial and legal responsibilities
• Are willing to build strong relationships with the Care Experienced community

For more information, please see our Trustee Recruitment pack below, or contact: board@whocaresscotland.org.