The role
About us:
Southwark is a large, ambitious and progressive council with a ‘can do’ attitude and enviable reputation. As a Council, we are successful, passionate and forward-thinking. We are committed to our ‘Fairer Futures for All’ promise which ensures that our residents and businesses are central to everything we do. If you want to make a difference at a local level, apply to Southwark Council today.
In September 2022 our Ofsted inspection saw continued drive from everyone across our services to place children at the heart of practice and be impressive champions or for children and saw a group of frontline professionals that have risen to the challenge, shown creativity and flexibility and continue to have hope and ambition for all children. More importantly because of the excellent work of our all staff, our children told Ofsted that Southwark is a ‘special council’ and like family. Placements is an exceptionally tough context nationally and in London but we are determined to invest and have an excellent offer for children in care and Care Leavers that understands and can meet their needs.
At Southwark Children’s Services, we pride ourselves on doing our vital job differently. Our systemic, holistic, family-centred approach sits at the core of our values. For the reasons you can see above Ofsted recently judged us as Good in all areas.
The role:
We are now recruiting for a Service Manager - Access to Resources to lead the Placements and Contact Service.
As a member of the management team in our Permanence Service based in Peckham, you will work with the Head of Service to provide innovative leadership to develop an excellent placements and support service which is focussed on delivering excellent outcomes and excellent value for money.
You will be part of an ambitious continuous improvement programme across children and families and will be supported with high quality service development support to innovate and work to develop an Outstanding Service. It will be an exciting time working with a highly ambitious Fostering Service and being part of the leadership team developing Children's Homes in Southwark.
The broad scope of the role requires a results-focused approach, supported by well-developed analytical planning, excellent practice knowledge and strong organizational skills, all of which will be used to best effect in helping to instil an ambitious reflective and open culture.
You will uphold the commitments of our Southwark Stands Together programme against racism and to ensure in ensure for placements equality is at our heart and discrimination and inequality is eradicated for our children in care and Care Leavers, wider families and workforce.
This is an excellent role for someone ambitious to take on a whole system role that will be an excellent development role before stepping into a Head of Service or Director role.
About you:
We are looking for creative and experienced leader with the drive, resilience and creativity to develop an excellent placements and resources service.
You will have managed operational teams and shown effective budget management within a children’s social care (or comparable) context as well as ideally having some commissioning experience and have a genuine commitment to the provision of high quality services for families.
You will be skilled in transformation and re-design being bold and making changes working in collaboration with partners across the council to put children first. You will have excellent communication, interpersonal and influencing skills.
This is a challenging and exciting role that requires a candidate with ambition, tenacity, creativity and proven experience in leadership and effectively managing budgets and making financial savings in Children’s Services to help to continue to develop an ambitious programme of delivering high quality homes for children in care and Care Leavers.
Benefits and more information:
From flexible working to job sharing (where possible) we are committed to providing a healthy work life balance. You will benefit from 33 days basic annual leave (plus bank holidays), rising to 36 days with continuous service, a generous local government salary related pension, cycle to work and cycle loan scheme, season-ticket loan, confidential wellbeing and counselling support. For more information about the wide variety of benefits you can take advantage of please visit our Staff Benefits page. Our offer also includes:
- Substantial training and development is provided including dedicated service development support for developing and modernising the service.
- An offer of mentoring and dedicated support to the role.
- A salary range of £54,366 to £67,623 per annum plus additional JNC financial benefits package of £2,724 per annum (pro-rata, April-March).
Please note any applications received without a CV and covering letter/ supporting statement will not be considered.
Recruitment timetable
Closing Date: Sunday 26th February 2023 at 23:59
Shortlisting: Tuesday 28th February 2023
Interviews and Assessments: Monday 6th March 2023
Stakeholder Panel: tbc
SWCHTF
We are an organisation who is passionate about our people and understands that richness of diversity is a requirement to provide the best possible services to our communities. This is demonstrated through our council-wide ambitious commitment to tackle racial inequality in our communities and workforce through our Southwark Stands Together programme. We particularly welcome applications from members of the Black, Asian and ethnic minority communities to increase representation at senior management level in the Council.
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