Service Manager - Children's Residential

This role will require some out of hours on-call responsibility. There will be an 8% on- call allowance applied and paid, in addition to the annual salary.

Children and Families is recognised as a service in which social work can develop and prosper, with a culture of collaboration, integrity, and compassion; promoting development and wellbeing of children, young people and their families; protecting them from neglect and abuse. Working together with partners delivering a range of early help, family support and effective social work interventions which build resilience, remove barriers and enable children and young people to look forward to a brighter future.

Service Managers are accountable for performance and delivery of a lead service area. This leader will have extensive social care experience; an understanding of current issues and the ability to ensure the innovative use of resources to improve productivity and quality outcomes. Contributing to the development of policy and strategy, this leader will build strong, credible working relationships with internal and external partners, driving and shaping service improvements.

This is a specialist role within the area of children in care placement services – specifically the delivery, commissioning and quality assurance of children’s residential care. The postholder will be able to deliver the objectives of the job within these specialist areas.

Roles at this level will be focused on delivering results in a specific functional area. They will hold expertise on the application of policy and improvement of service delivery. These roles have clear team budgets and targets set within the overall service requirements.

Accountabilities

Children’s Residential Care

• Integrated Working: Develop local approaches with partners and agencies for effective service delivery.

• Change Management: Promote new ways of working in complex environments.

• Vision & Values: Implement Children & Families’ vision to support early life success.

• Stakeholder Collaboration: Work with external partners to innovate and maximize opportunities.

• Compliance: Ensure adherence to regulations and maintain links with governance bodies.

• Budget Management: Deliver services within budget, highlighting risks and contract issues.

• Business Continuity & Safety: Lead on continuity and health and safety, updating plans and policies.

• Cost-Effective Solutions: Collaborate to ensure quality, cost-effective solutions.

• Performance Targets: Define and achieve annual targets and objectives.

• Recognised social work qualification (Diploma, degree, Master’s, CQSW, CSS) with Social Work England registration (SWE).

• Ongoing professional development aligned with competency frameworks or Knowledge and Skills Statements.

• Collaborative work with internal and external partners, demonstrating broad thinking across social care and the wider system.

• Significant social care experience with an understanding of current issues and local delivery implications.

• Strong leadership and behavioral skills to build a high-performing, motivated team.

• Experience managing change in rapidly evolving, ambiguous environments with conflicting priorities.

• Proven influencing skills to lead and deliver cultural change for service quality improvement.

• Experience of working and/or managing within the children’s residential care sector

If you have queries on this role or require anything further, please email resourcing.team@essex.gov.uk