Assistant Director - SEND in Walthamstow

Organisation: London Borough of Waltham Forest

Salary: AD £94,811.07- £107,171.54

Contract Type: Full-time/Permanent

Working hours per week: 36

Application Deadline: 21/06/2026

Proposed Interview Date(s): TBC

Reference: 2165

About Us:

Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, the London Borough of Waltham Forest is a fantastic and exciting place to work. We are a highly ambitious borough. Driven by culture and the innate creativity of our residents, we have developed new and innovative ways to build our communities. Our Council is relentlessly resident-focused, insight-led, digitally driven and commercially minded; a Council focused on meeting the needs of our existing and future residents.

London Borough of Waltham Forest is one of the Mayor of London’s Good Work Standard employers. This accreditation is proof of our commitment to creating a healthy, fair and inclusive workplace. This includes fair pay and conditions, workplace well-being, skills and progression and diversity and recruitment.

About the role:

We are looking for a highly motivated and experienced Assistant Director to lead our SEND Statutory Assessment and Commissioning Teams. Significant experience of managing complex organisational structures within a local government context at a senior leadership level in work that includes some or all of Commissioning Services for Children and managing Statutory SEND Assessments.

Key Responsibilities:

• Postholder must be committed to and able to evidence strong skills in co-production and adherence to the four cornerstones of co-production.
• Successful track record of developing and delivering integrated services which are effective at meeting customer needs and are cost efficient, and which feature conflicting stakeholder demands and vested interests.
• Experience of financial management, including a track record of achieving sustainable budget reductions and maintaining service quality.
• Strong understanding of the legislative and statutory frameworks affecting service delivery within this area, including knowledge of commissioning processes and how schools, colleges and settings are funded for SEN, Children and Families Act 2014, the Care Act 2015 and the Mental Health Capacity Act.
• Ability to build effective specialist and generic teams and integrated relationships.
• Experience of working in partnership with social care and health partners to ensure integrated planning of SEND provision and services.
• Experience of successful service re-design and improvement.
• Successful and proficient problem-solving skills, with the ability to think and flourish in uncertainty and ambiguity.
• Extensive experience of managing people and performance and leading and managing complex change programmes.
• Well developed and effective communication and presentation skills, adaptable to different situations.
• High level and high impact leadership skills.
• An ability to foster and sustain confidence in staff and a wide range of stakeholders including statutory and non-statutory organisations in periods of organisational change.
• Strong project management skills and experience.
• Experience in effective development and management of partnerships.
• Experience of managing commissioning activity and relationships.

Qualifications and Requirements:

Educated to degree level or equivalent by experience with a relevant professional qualification (e.g. education psychology; teaching; social work; youth work). Post graduate qualification/Relevant professional qualification.

Terms and conditions:

• Satisfactory employment references
• Satisfactory declaration of interest;
• This role is subject to safer recruitment practices as it involves work with children and/or vulnerable adults;
• Satisfactory DBS check;
• This post is politically restricted therefore the post holder is disqualified from undertaking certain political activities under the Local Government Officers (Political Restrictions) Regulations 1990.
• As a public authority, we must ensure that members of staff in public-facing roles are able to speak fluent English. This means that they must have a command of spoken English, with confidence and accuracy, sufficient for the effective performance of their role.

How to Apply:

Interested candidates are invited to submit their applications online by pressing the ‘Apply’ button below. This includes a supporting statement that outlines to us how your skills and experience make you a good candidate for this vacancy. We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both, service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives:

• Promoting equality of opportunity
• Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage
• Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels.
• Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all.

Respecting Diversity is a core Council value.

To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy.

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below or feel free to discuss this during your interview.

Contact Information:

If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact Mary Jarrett, at mary.jarrett@walthamforest.gov.uk. If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Recruitment Team via email at recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk.

The Council’s preference is for online application. However, if you have a disability and are unable to complete an online application, please email recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk so we can arrange an alternative application method.

Fraud Awareness Notice:

The London Borough of Waltham Forest only advertises vacancies via our official website and approved recruitment platforms (e.g. Jobsgopublic). We will never ask for payment or request sensitive personal or financial information as part of our recruitment process. If you are contacted by a third party claiming to represent the Council, please verify the vacancy via our official careers website before sharing any information. If you have concerns about a job advert or communication, please report it to: fraud@walthamforest.gov.uk.