Head of services in housing and support: Kirklees career guide

This is a new independent career guide at a retained web address; the terms and responsibilities of an earlier advertisement have not been reconstructed.

A head-of-services role may bring responsibility for several services, a wider portfolio or a significant organisational function. The useful question is the scope of accountability: which outcomes, people, resources and decisions does the post own? A senior title alone does not answer that.

Understand the level of responsibility

The Skills England senior housing and property-management standard describes work involving service delivery, resources, teams and collaboration. It offers occupational context. It does not define every head-of-services job or prove the duties of a particular post.

When reading a specification, separate day-to-day service supervision from wider leadership. Look for responsibility across services, management of managers, decisions about resources, organisational reporting or relationships with external partners. Some posts combine these with substantial operational work; establish the actual balance.

Map accountability in three directions: what you can decide, what you recommend to someone else, and what must be escalated. In an interview, that distinction helps you describe senior responsibility without overstating your authority.

Build a leadership evidence portfolio

An application needs more than a list of teams or projects. Choose examples that show how you understood a problem, made a considered decision and checked its effect. The matrix below is an original preparation framework; it is not an employer's scoring system.

For each example, write a short account of the situation and devote more space to your decision and its reasoning. Be candid about joint ownership. “We improved the process” needs an explanation of what you personally led, approved, challenged or followed up.

Use the skills worksheet to keep private notes. Remove identifiable service-user information and confidential organisational detail. Describe evidence you can explain accurately rather than presenting sensitive records.

Research Kirklees through primary sources

Kirklees' Preventing Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2024–2029, approved by Cabinet on 10 September 2024, addresses partnership work, early intervention, accommodation and rough sleeping. Its priorities are a starting point for understanding local context, not a job description.

The council's 2026/27–2028/29 priorities provide a more recent view of planned activity. Check the dates of both the document and any figures within it. An older baseline in a current strategy is still an older baseline.

Use this original research checklist to turn reading into informed questions:

Our interpretation is that a candidate can use these sources to explore coordination, access to support and how outcomes are understood. Do not infer a recruitment shortage, a specific commission or an employer's priorities merely because a public strategy discusses a need.

Ask how quality and accountability work

Before taking on wider responsibility, establish how the organisation learns from people using its services, staff feedback, complaints and performance information. Ask what assurance the role must provide and to whom. A useful leadership discussion connects the information collected with the decisions it is meant to improve.

Prepare an example of respectfully challenging an optimistic report, discovering a gap or changing course after feedback. Explain how you recognised the issue and what happened next. A credible example can include a result that was incomplete, provided the account is honest about its limitations.

Qualifications: establish the role's actual scope

England's Competence and Conduct Standard took effect on 1 October 2026. Its qualification provisions have defined role and organisational tests; the job title “head of services” does not establish the answer on its own. The regulator's FAQs explain scope and transition arrangements.

Ask the employer whether the post falls within the qualification requirements, how it has assessed that and what development support is offered. Then compare its response with the actual specification and our training guide. Do not buy a course solely because its title sounds senior.

Prepare questions for the employer

• Which services and outcomes would I be accountable for, and which decisions are delegated to the post?
• Would I manage service managers, frontline teams or both?
• What are the first improvement priorities, and what evidence informs them?
• How are resident or service-user perspectives included in decisions?
• What are the main resource constraints and reporting responsibilities?
• Which partners or commissioners does the role work with, where relevant?
• What supervision, professional development and specialist advice support the post?

Use the supporting-statement guide to organise your evidence around the real criteria. The interview guide helps you prepare for follow-up questions, while the West Yorkshire resource guide offers broader local careers support.