Service Manager (early learning and childcare)

Salary: £72,159

Hours: 35 hours per week

Location: Flexible (Any Care Inspectorate office)

Contract: Permanent

About us

We are the national regulator and scrutiny body responsible for providing assurance and protection for people who experience care services, their families, carers and the wider public, as well as supporting delivery partners to improve the quality of care for people in Scotland. Our vision is that people across Scotland experience high quality care that meets their needs, rights and choices.

We are a scrutiny body that supports improvement. We inspect individual care services and we also work with other scrutiny bodies to inspect the social care and social work services people are experiencing in their local areas.

Our desire is to achieve an effective and balanced way of working, that enables us to meet organisational needs and achieve a work-life balance that promotes wellbeing and collaboration opportunities. Our hybrid working policy gives you the flexibility to mix working from home with attendance at your base office and other work locations, spending no more than 60% of your working time working from home, measured over a 4-week period.

About the role

As part of our ongoing growth, we are currently expanding our Early Learning and Childcare team, we are recruiting a Service Manager to join our ELC team.

You will support the Assurance and Improvement Directorate to ensure that the Care Inspectorate meets its responsibilities as defined by the Public Services Reform Act 2010 and other relevant legislation.

The role of Service Manager – Early Learning and Childcare supports or conducts regulatory or strategic scrutiny activity by exercising ‘authorised person’ functions in terms of the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act or secondary legislation made

thereunder are ancillary to the Care Inspectorate’s primary authorised officer role and are defined as secondary authorised officers. This role supports or conducts regulatory or strategic scrutiny activity; however, the role purpose is broader than simply exercising the organisation’s inspection powers defined in the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 and secondary legislation made thereunder.

This role will oversee the work of Team Managers, who manage Inspectors to carry out scrutiny activity of early learning and childcare services including shared inspections with Education Scotland. Team Managers and Inspectors also play an important role in supporting quality assuring care services and providing professional advice to assist in developing the quality of service delivery. Acting as relationship managers, they provide support and challenge to local authorities, and providers of multiple services with the aim of supporting continuous improvement.

The successful candidate will manage projects and support the work of the directorate including overseeing the quality assurance of our scrutiny work. The role also involves liaison with external stakeholders, promoting the work of the organisation and contributing to national policy and initiatives.

The role holder will be expected to support the Assurance and Improvement Directorate to ensure that the Care Inspectorate meets its responsibilities as defined by the Public Services Reform Act 2010 and other relevant legislation.

This senior role works with other leaders and colleagues to support significant cultural change, consolidate excellence in the Care Inspectorate’s activities and continue to invest in our competent, confident workforce in a way that puts collaboration at the core of our work.

About you

You will have significant experience in services for early learning and childcare, and experience of assurance and improvement activity, including inspection. You must be able to work well with colleagues to achieve shared aims, support innovation, and make the best use of resources. You will demonstrate the ability to provide leadership and direction to a diverse, multi-disciplinary team of professional staff and be highly effective in working creatively and collaboratively across organisational and professional boundaries.

Adept at challenging traditional thinking in a positive and constructive way, you will be an articulate and positive communicator, both verbally and in written form, with the ability to engage, influence and lead the development of a wide range of key stakeholder relationships, both internally and externally.

You will also be politically astute and demonstrate a broad knowledge of trends and relevant issues within health, social care, and education. To apply:

• You will be educated to SCQF level 9
• You will be registered or have the ability to register as a secondary authorised officer.

We are looking for someone who has:

• Proven track record of effective management and leadership of staff in the area of health, social care, or education.
• Demonstrable experience of strategic planning and delivery of services and supporting and embedding sustainable business and transformational change.
• Extensive experience in collaborative and values-based leadership, including working with partners.

The professional registration process

The successful applicant must be registered with a professional body (this can be NMC, GTCS, NMC, HCPC, SSSC).

For SSSC registration, there is a specific registration category for Care Inspectorate Authorised Officers (AO). There will be two levels of AO registration (Primary AO and Secondary AO), and identification of types of work undertaken (Social Care and Children and Young People).

On appointment as a Service Manager ELC you will be required to register with SSSC as a Secondary AO under both types of work (Social Care and Children and Young People) or be registered with another appropriate registration body (NMC, GTCS, HCPC).

We would expect non-SSSC staff to hold or gain the appropriate AO qualification (in this case EFQM would be the minimum qualification).

Next steps

You’ll find more information in the job profile and person specification.

If you would like more information or an informal chat about the role, please contact Audrey Donnan (Chief Inspector – Early Learning and Childcare) at Audrey.Donnan @careinspectorate.gov.scot, please include a contact telephone number and times that would be best to reach you in your email.

If you believe that your skills, experience and motivation make you a suitable candidate for this post, please complete the online application form by 08:00 on Monday 4 August 2025.

It is anticipated that interviews will be held no sooner than Monday 18 August at our Dundee office.