CD of Community Safety & Public Protection in Walthamstow

Organisation: London Borough of Waltham Forest

Contract Type: Full-time Permanent

Working hours per week: 36

Application Deadline: 01/03/2026

Proposed Interview Date(s): TBC

Reference: 2009

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:

Community resilience, fear of crime and anti-social behaviour is consistently a top priority for our residents and political leadership. This is a pivotal role driving forward the Council’s mission to ensure safe, green neighbourhoods where everyone can thrive with a critical role in influencing decision-making and driving impact locally, regionally and nationally.

This role will lead the development of a new combined directorate, bringing a range of statutory and discretionary services together to ensure safe and secure neighbourhoods, ensuring the borough makes full use of all its powers. The post holder will have direct responsibility for delivery of strategies and operations to tackle anti-social behaviour, community safety, emergency and contingency planning, CCTV, private sector housing licensing, premises licensing, market trading, food safety and trading standards.

The post holder will implement and lead a new operating model for public safety within the Council that is grounded in resident engagement and participation, is data-led and influential in leading local partnerships. You will provide system leadership across the borough’s statutory Community Safety Partnership, developing a robust community safety strategy and ensuring that strong tactical and operational tasking arrangements are in place. Retaining ambition for our residents, you will demonstrate a cast iron grip on our finances and remain relentlessly focused on the impact for those that live and work in Waltham Forest.

The post holder will project our influence across London and national forums, demonstrating innovation and ambition and embody the borough’s commitment to tackling inequality in all that we do. You will lead on building practical and strategic relationships with the Police ensuring the best outcomes for residents.

• Drive forward the Council’s mission to deliver safe, green neighbourhoods where everyone can thrive.
• Ensure a coherent hierarchy of effective plans and strategies are in place to respond to priority threats and drive ambitious resident outcomes.
• Establish and maintain an integrated operating model of outreach, direct delivery, intervention, commission and case working functions.
• Prevent and tackle anti-social behaviour.
• Leadership of corporate resilience and maintenance of effective emergency planning and contingency management arrangements.
• Provide strong regulatory services which meet legislative requirements and protect the public.
• Manage the strategic relationship with the Police.
• Manage a complex Public Protection budget, leveraging external funding streams and maximising value for money.
• Manage external relationships; formally represent the Council; lead negotiation, partnership working and liaison with London wide and National agencies.

Qualifications and Requirements:

Educated to degree level or equivalent standard. Professional accreditation related to one or more regulatory services in scope preferred.

Terms and conditions:

• Satisfactory employment references and CIFAS identity checks;
• Satisfactory declaration of interest;
• This role is subject to safer recruitment practices as it involves work with children and/or vulnerable adults;
• 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. This requirement does not refer to any particular English language qualifications, regional or international accents, dialects, speech impediments or the tone of conversations. It does not require staff to speak only in English.

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 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.

If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact Debbie Porter, Strategic Director, Neighbourhood and Environment at debbie.porter@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.