Service Manager

The successful candidate will be required to carry out the following:

Responsibility for the day-to-day operational management, professional leadership and oversight of the child protection enquiry and conferencing service, including the Lead Child Protection Practitioner pilot. The postholder will line manage Child Protection Co-ordinators and Lead Child Protection Practitioners and ensure that Section 47 enquiries, strategy meetings, child protection conferences and associated statutory safeguarding activity are timely, legally compliant, consistently high quality and centred on the safety, wishes and lived experience of children.

To set objectives for the service, develop delivery plans and allocate resources to achieve these objectives. To promote and govern excellent child protection practice across Children's Services and the multi-agency partnership, ensuring the proportionate exercise of statutory authority, purposeful work with children, families, their networks and professionals, and demonstrable improvements in outcomes. To provide a clear quality assurance line of sight through performance oversight, audit, practice review, learning and training, and to support the implementation and evaluation of the LCPP pilot within the national children's social care reform programme. To ensure a culture of learning, constructive challenge and continuous improvement.

• Registration with Social Work England (SWE) and substantial post-qualifying experience in children’s social work

• Strong knowledge of safeguarding, statutory responsibilities, and public law

• Proven experience of leading teams through change and improvement

• The ability to inspire, support and appropriately challenge teams to deliver high standards

• Confidence working across agencies and influencing system-wide outcomes

• Experience using quality assurance and insight to drive continuous improvement

• Strong budget management skills and financial awareness

• A proactive, solution-focused approach in complex and demanding environments

To apply for this role you must have:

Be eligible to work within the UK

We offer:

An excellent referral scheme for each successfully placed referral

Certified complimentary training

24 hour one on one specialist social work consultant based within your geographical area

Employee Benefits Programme

Our own dedicated payroll support ensuring you get the full benefits of your payment - we offer twice weekly payroll too!

For more information or details of other roles, please contact Simone at Social Care Locums or visit our website to upload your CV.