Group Manager (Children and Families)

We are currently recruiting for 2 Group Managers to join our Children and Families Leadership team.

Reward and Support

• Between £63,132- £68,342 per annum subject to experience (pro rata for part-time staff)
• Up to £8,000 relocation package
• Flexible and agile working opportunities
• 25.5 days annual leave rising to 30.5 days after 5 years continuous service (pro rata for part-time staff)
• Option to purchase 10 days of additional leave per year (pro rata for part-time staff)
• Family friendly policies and benefits to help support you and your family
• Supportive and positive working environment with regular, robust supervision
• Access to our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) that provides free, confidential counselling and advice for employees, available 24 hours a day, online and by telephone
• An in-house Occupational Health service
• Links to employee networks such as Prism (LGBT+) and the Young Employees Network
• Career development and qualification opportunities
• Access to our Social Work Academy
• Cycle to Work scheme (eligibility criteria and t&cs apply)
• Green Car Salary Sacrifice Scheme (eligibility criteria and t&cs apply)

In our recent inspection in June 2025, our Children’s Services have been officially judged as ‘Good’ with ‘Outstanding’ elements. Ofsted also said ‘Leaders have set out a clear vision for delivering success for children, by modelling values and creating a culture where the workforce, children and families feel valued and heard; risk is managed confidently with bottom lines clearly set out.’ This marks an important step in our journey to improve outcomes for our children and young people, and we remain focused on our mission: to continue building on this success and ensure that every child and young person in our county has the opportunity to thrive.

Gloucestershire offers a range of opportunities to develop your career, supported by a phenomenal Social Work Academy offer, a developing systemic practice methodology, an ambitious leadership team and an award-winning workforce. We are a local authority adopting, and training all colleagues in, systemic social work practice. If you would like to be part of an authority that takes a relational approach to working with families and focuses on what needs to change in the system around a child and family to enable children to thrive, then consider a role with GCC.

About the team

This role sits within our senior leadership team, you will report directly to the assistant director responsible for your area. You will play a key part in children’s services leadership to provide oversight of the following:

• Leading and embedding systemic practice with children and families
• Enabling children to remain with birth families wherever possible
• Protecting children who experience or are at risk of significant harm
• Acting as corporate parent to children unable to remain within birth families
• Providing help and support to disabled children and their families
• Providing system leadership as a statutory safeguarding partner

About the role

You will lead your teams in delivering a culture of high-quality practice that achieves good outcomes for vulnerable children and young people, you will establish clear goals and expectations in line with GCC priorities, provide challenging and supportive line management to ensure these are met, and hold your direct reports to account. You will:

• Line manage several managers who support children subject to child in need and child protection plans and pre/care proceedings
• Be accountable for the rigorous implementation of the children’s services quality assurance framework to monitor and review performance (both compliance and quality), take action to build on strengths and respond to areas for improvement
• Support and liaise with the assistant director to feed into their high-level service delivery planning
• Work with the other group managers across the county to ensure consistent delivery of high-quality support to children and families
• Take on operational lead roles in enhancing and developing practice

About you

As well as your experience, there are some things we require of you to be successfully appointed to this post:

• A full driving licence and willingness to drive
• DBS clearance (Enhanced Adults and Children’s)
• Some management and leadership experience

We reserve the right to close an advertisement earlier than the stated closing date if we receive a suitable number of applications. Interviews are due to take place in person on 6th March 2026.

We may be able to offer sponsorship for this role, in line with Home Office guidance and subject to pre-employment checks. Applicants must already hold a valid right to work in the UK that Gloucestershire County Council can transfer.

If you are an Internal applicant and consider yourself to have a disability as per the Equality Act (2010), please declare this in an email to CSWrecruitment@gloucestershire.gov.uk, as this is NOT currently covered in the application due to a technical error. By providing this information, you can choose to be considered for a guaranteed interview under our Disability Confident pledge if you meet all essential shortlisting criteria. It also enables the recruiting manager to arrange any reasonable adjustments you may need during the interview process.

Under the terms of our Safer Recruitment Policy, if you are invited to interview, we will take up safeguarding references prior to your interview to understand your suitability to work with vulnerable children. These references will then be discussed in your interview. Please give details of at least two referees, one of whom must be your present and/or last employer and the other from a previous employer(s). These will need to cover the last three years of employment/education. In the case of applicants leaving full time education or not having worked since doing so, the Head of School, College or University should be one of the named referees. We do not accept references from friends or family members or workplace colleagues (who are not more senior).

To ensure we process your application in a speedy and efficient way, we will contact your referees by DocuSign. Where appropriate, please inform them of your application.

Additional Information

This Position is subject to a DBS check. Gloucestershire County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people or vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. We want to be an employer of choice, attracting and retaining excellent people to work for us, so that we can best serve all of Gloucestershire’s diverse communities. Our promise to you is that we will provide an inclusive and supportive working environment that enables you to bring your whole self to work and realise your full potential.

It is a legal requirement, under the Immigration Act 2016, that anyone appointed to a ‘customer facing role’ must be able to demonstrate an ability to fulfil all spoken aspects of the role with confidence in fluent English. Hybrid working arrangements are available for the majority of our roles, giving teams the opportunity to work in a way that suits them, balancing service need and individual choice, with a mix of both remote and office working.