Assistant Service Manager - Including Allocation Hub in Reading

We are recruiting for the role of Assistant Service Manager in our team(s) covering Reading, West Berkshire, Wokingham. We trust and empower colleagues to work in a hybrid way, providing the resources, equipment, and support, so that individually and collectively, we can be the voice of children and young people when the family court makes critical decisions about their futures.

Whilst this role is part of a team based from our office in Reading, West Berkshire, Wokingham, our teams work flexibly and remotely; your proximity to the office doesn’t always have to be a critical consideration. We are a diverse, inclusive organisation that is a safe space for colleagues with shared aspects of identity and lived experience, which helps ensure we provide a service that promotes the diversity and uniqueness of children and families from all backgrounds. We especially welcome applications from people from diverse backgrounds as we strive to ensure our workforce reflects the diversity of the children and families we work with.

We provide extensive wellbeing support for colleagues, as well as excellent benefits, all of which we hope encourages you to join us. Let us tell you a bit more about the role… Being an Assistant Service Manager is very rewarding but, as you would expect, challenging too. You will manage a team of Family Court Advisers and have a good understanding of what good looks like in Public and Private law cases. Through your own practice and reflective/case supervision of colleagues, you will consistently reflect and champion the values and core practice of our practice framework, ‘Together with Children and Families’. As an Assistant Service Manager, it is your duty to safeguard and protect the welfare of children, and the support you provide to colleagues to achieve the same standards of safeguarding practice.

Providing high-quality reflective case supervision, you will be accountable for your own practice and for the quality and impact of the practice quality standards of the Family Court Advisers you directly manage.

As well as being registered with Social Work England, you’ll be organised, resilient, and have some experience of supervising, coaching, or mentoring social workers. You will promote resilience and wellbeing at work, maintaining morale and be confident in managing employees with a wide range of professional experience. You will be a good communicator both orally and in writing, with emotional intelligence, at all levels and especially when interacting with children.

Next steps / timelines: If and when you are ready to apply, our application process is straightforward and quick to complete. You don’t need to complete your application in a single visit; you can start it and come back and amend your responses/update your CV, just make sure you come back before the closing date to submit. Below we have given you an indication of a timetable we are hoping to work towards, although dates are subject to change.

• Closing date: 25th May 2026
• Initial Interview: TBC
• Final Interview: TBC

We understand you may benefit from finding out more to help you decide to apply. There is a lot of information available at Cafcass Careers but if there is something else you need to find out more about, you can either contact Kiera Manuel (kiera.manuel@cafcass.gov.uk) from our HR Resourcing team if your query is to do with the recruitment process or is HR-related, or Victor Mangwende (Victor.Mangwende@cafcass.gov.uk) if your questions relate more to the role, providing your contact information and best times/methods to get hold of you. Whilst we will always try and respond as soon as possible, we wouldn’t want you to miss the closing date before we are able to. If this is the case, we recommend you apply and as part of your application you can ask questions and this may allow us to contact you and provide you with the required information that will help you decide if you still wish to be considered.

Finally, in anticipation of your application being successful, you might want to read about the offer and pre-employment checks process. As part of your application, you can highlight any concerns or questions about the pre-employment checks and we encourage all applicants to do so, safe in the knowledge such information will not be shared with individuals involved in the selection process. We look forward to hearing from you. Please be advised successful applicants will be subject to a range of pre-engagement checks, including a Disclosure and Barring Service check (DBS). In accordance with the DBS code of practice and our own policy, should an individual have a declared criminal offence, an individual assessment will be completed. Further information on what the assessment covers can be found by viewing the Cafcass DBS policy.

We are Cafcass – the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service – and we represent children in family court cases in England. Independently advising the family courts about what is safe for children and in their best interests, we speak up for over 130,000 children every year when the family court makes critical decisions about their futures, ensuring their needs, wishes, and feelings are heard.

If our purpose resonates with you, then if you join us you will work alongside like-minded people in a diverse, inclusive and supportive organisation. You will be trusted to work flexibly and independently using outstanding technology (e.g. touchscreen laptops, iPhone, all with first-class support, including IT Trainers) with access to substantial resources (e.g. Cafcass Library has over 27,000 resources on social work, child protection and related topics). You will also have opportunities to develop, whatever team you join, wherever you are in the country and at whatever stage you are at in your career. Whether you join us in one of our social work roles that work directly with children and families or our corporate and business services teams who provide technology, support and expertise, you will have the chance to make a difference for children and families.

The wellbeing of our colleagues is something we are truly passionate about, as demonstrated by everyone having four dedicated, additional days per year when they are encouraged to spend time focusing on their health and wellbeing. Colleagues can also have a health and wellbeing cash plan, for which Cafcass pays the basic premium (you can upgrade to include family members), which allows them to claim back some costs of routine health expenses, including dental check-ups, eye tests, physiotherapy sessions and more. Overall, we foster a holistic approach to supporting our colleagues, benefitting physical, mental and financial health. This is led by a dedicated in-house team, the benefits of which include meaning support is targeted and specific to what colleagues need. Our team can also offer support and guidance when it comes to specific health conditions, such as neuro-diverse conditions, cancer and the menopause. Our wellbeing offer is further strengthened by an external Employee Assistance Provider (EAP) which provides a free confidential support service 24 hours a day. This means access to clinical and professional expertise which gives you a chance to talk about all kinds of work and personal issues.

We represent children and families from diverse backgrounds and having a diverse workforce helps us to fulfil this responsibility authentically. It also helps us to grow, evolve and innovate, so we particularly welcome applications from individuals from diverse backgrounds as we strive to ensure our workforce reflects the diversity of the children and families we work with. We are also a Disability Confident Leader, which further underlines our commitment to employ, train, retain and develop the careers of colleagues with disabilities. Our Diversity Networks provide a safe space for colleagues with shared aspects of identity and lived experience – supported by allies across the organisation. The networks help ensure we provide an inclusive working environment and a service which promotes the diversity and uniqueness of children and families from all backgrounds.

‘Together with Children and Families’ (which we just call ‘Together’) is the name of our relationship-based practice framework. It applies to the work of every individual in Cafcass, from Social Workers to Leaders and includes our Corporate and Business Support teams. It is at the heart of what we do and is made up of our values, how these values work in practice, the tools to use to incorporate these values in our work and the impact this will have on the children and families we serve. This framework encourages us to be proactive and to look for the strengths in ourselves and others. It also enables us to build positive relationships with our colleagues, our partners and most importantly, with the children and families with whom we work.

We know if you join us you want to be rewarded in a variety of ways, including time away from work to spend time with those important to you, manage your financial present and future, whilst also being trusted to manage your work/life balance. Therefore, in addition to our unique, holistic approach to supporting your health and wellbeing we also provide:

• Generous holidays: 28 days holiday (including three for Christmas) rising to 33 days with five years continuous service, which could include your current employment. You can also buy more holiday or sell any you do not need.
• Excellent pension: 19.4% employer contribution to Local Government Pension scheme, potentially building on your current pension.
• Flexible working: Most colleagues work in a hybrid way, having the benefits of working both from the office and home; we also accommodate flexible working requests (e.g. 9-day fortnights).
• Exclusive discounts: Generous discounts with a wide range of companies covering leisure, technology, travel, personal finance, fashion and supermarkets.
• Professional fees: Social work colleagues have their annual Social Work England membership fees reimbursed.
• Car leasing schemes: We have our own scheme for colleagues that travel a significant number of business miles, as well as an open scheme through a third party.

This list is just a selection of main benefits and we have a range of policies and processes that allow us to support our colleagues - and their families – and we look forward to providing you with further information about these in due course.