Head of Service Workforce, Policy and Professional Practice

Number of Vacancies:

1

Time Type:

Part time

Worker Type:

Regular

Proposed Interview Date:

Wednesday, July 1, 2026

Hours of Work:

15

Hiring Manager:

Gemma Laister

Contact Number:

01482 615167

Job Description Summary:

This is a Part Time, Permanent Position
Head of Service Workforce, Policy and Professional Practice - Grade 14 - Pro Rata Salary £30,116
Are you passionate about making a positive and lasting difference for the people of Hull? Are you ambitious in achieving our vision of supporting people to have a life not a service? We are seeking an exceptional leader to join us within Adult Social Care as Head of Workforce, Policy and Professional Practice.
ROLE AND PURPOSE
As a member of the Directorate Management Team the postholder will be responsible for the effective discharge and monitoring of relevant statutory duties as specified in law and guidance. The postholder will support the leadership of strengths based and person centred practices to deliver outcomes focussed support to enable people to live fulfilled lives.
This role will lead and manage teams and ASC Academy and bring together colleagues from within and beyond the Council to ensure the delivery of the Adult Social Care vision, legislative duties and key strategic departmental and corporate plans.
Reporting to the Strategic Lead Improvement and Assurance the postholder will be required to provide reports and service plans including improvement plans to DMT, CST, elected members, Cabinet, Scrutiny and strategic boards e.g. Hull Safeguarding Adults Partnership Board and Improvement Boards .
The post holder will lead on developing and embedding systems and processes to support Adult Social Care as a learning and inclusive organisation. The post holder will lead on providing evidence and quality assurance to measure continuous improvement and development of workforce, culture and practice. The post holder will provide leadership to workforce development across commissioned services, in-house provision and social work and occupational therapy professional practice ensuring opportunities for integration are explored, evaluated and embedded.
The post holder will be the service area operational and strategic lead to regional workforce, policy and professional networks e.g. ADASS, to ensure that the Local Authority has a voice and influence at a regional level to support workforce and policy initiatives to create a sustainable and developed workforce.
The post holder will lead on practice and systems to support the wellbeing of the ASC Workforce. They will co-ordinate, manage and submit the national returns for Employer Standards and other related returns to professional bodies e.g. Social Work England, Local Government Association, Skills for Care on behalf of Adult Social Care. The post holder will lead on internal and external co-ordination and the submission of surveys relating to workforce, policy and professional practice e.g. Annual staff survey, Investors in People etc.
The post holder will examine and appraise national policies and reforms and will co-ordinate learning and development of the Adult Social Care workforce to provide standardisation and progression to support transferable skills and experience between social care and health to support the delivery of an integrated workforce focussed on recruitment, retention and meeting needs of people and communities.
The post holder will work with key partners to create and develop workforce initiatives to support employment and career development opportunities in social care e.g. Proud to Care, Kickstart and Apprenticeships.
The post holder will lead the delivery of the Adult Social Care Workforce Plan that incorporates recruitment, retention, training, learning, continuous professional development and succession planning to ensure the service has a well-developed confident workforce with experience, skills and knowledge to deliver high quality services. The post holder will lead on ensuring Adult Social Care policies and procedures are up to date, fit for purpose and available to all staff.PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITIES:

1 Strategy – Supports other key decision makers e.g. operational managers, Principal Social Worker and legal colleagues to ensure decisions are informed by ethical assessment and judgement.Provides reflective challenge and understands and supports the importance of shared learning and development of workforce.Leads on identifying and mitigating service area risks and issues including robust monitoring and recording, escalating to the senior leadership team when necessary.
2 Customer Focus – Works collaboratively with people, their carers, families, friends and advocates to design, develop and evaluate delivery of services.Role models and demonstrates behaviours and practice to develop and embed a service culture of ‘Making it Real’ and demonstrates commitment to the principles of co-production.Ensures research and evidence based practice is central to the workforce and quality assurance process.Ensures that all relevant policies include the ‘Think Local Act Personal’ principles and seek to include people with experience to evaluate and improve Adult Social Care policies and procedures. Provides oversight, analysis and reporting of the Adult Social Care workforce engagement plan providing assurance to the senior leadership team and the wider directorate of appropriate governance and the progress and development of agreed priorities.
3 Performance Management – Operate and implement effective performance management and quality assurance system as agreed with the Strategic Lead Improvement and Assurance to manage service, team and individual performance.Demonstrates visibility and significant engagement with workforce, people, key partners and stakeholders to be able to deliver continuous improvement across all services.Identify and implement service transformation that delivers increased efficiency, effectiveness and financial savings securing necessary changes to culture, behaviours and practice.Accountable for all service related budgets and activity monitoring and managing in line with the Council’s policies and procedures to ensure that each service is delivered within the agreed budget and savings/efficiency programmes.Lead on ensuring operational teams are ready to engage and support process re-engineering for appropriate digital and ICT requirements providing service expertise ‘buy in’ and role modelling digital housekeeping.Lead within area of responsibility a strong culture of seeking and valuing feedback from people, carers, families and advocates ensuring complaints and feedback is valued, understood and well connected to the complaint and feedback process in ASC.
4 Leadership – Contributes to the preparation, delivery and recommendations of all internal andexternal assurance, inspections, reviews and audits to ensure compliance and continuous improvement of ASC services.Model exemplary approach to own professional development and commitment to learning.Lead by example and provide leadership which is strengths and value based, outcome focussed and role models person centred practice.Serves as a strategic link between senior leaders, operational manager and their teams.Model exemplary approach to quality and safety and support staff to embed a culture of continuous improvement that includes audits, coaching, 1-1, identifying training and providing regular updates in relation to relevant regulatory frameworks, policy, service plans and best practice.Lead on development and implementation of a Social Work Academy in partnership with Children and Family Services and education providers.Leads on the co-ordination, organisation and evaluation of the Adult Social Care Workforce Steering Group to ensure key developments and opportunities for shared learning are implemented throughout the directorate.Provides strong, credible and consistent professional leadership for social work and occupational therapists and demonstrates a high level of legal literacy in both knowledge and practice.Contributes to support and sustain the learning and development opportunities for frontline staff developing a system to monitor and inform senior leadership of conditions to achieve ‘outstanding’ frontline practice.Champion the engagement and development of partnerships that will achieve and maintain both professional and service area continuous improvement e.g. teaching, Curiosity Partnership, Investors in People, CQC and Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE).Undertake ASC on call arrangements and lead on emergency/out of hours support to the whole of ASC including oversight of service/system pressures, business continuity and placement agreements.Maintain consistent and robust decision making by examining and verifying Deprivation of Liberty authorisations, responses to complaints and observations of practice and other related decisions delegated as per Head of Service rota. Upholds engagement and co-production principles with participation at various partnership boards to ensure the voice and influence of people are fully included in service changes, design and improvements.
5 Statutory Obligations - To ensure that relevant and appropriate statutory functions that fall within the service area are met and performance monitored and reported.Effectively deputise for Strategic Lead and/or Director of Adult Social Care participating professionally and confidently reporting promptly on key outcomes and actions.
6 Emergency Management and Response - In fulfilment of its statutory requirements under the Civil Contingencies Act, the Council operates an out of hours emergency response rota of which this post is part. The post holder will be required to assist in any emergency situations when an incident is declared.

NC4827.Head of Service Workforce Policy and Professional Practice.docx

Compensation Grades:

GRADES 14.

Pay Ranges:

£74,287.00 - £74,287.00

Job Classifications:

3- Not Politically Restricted - Designated As Not Politically Sensitive (Politically Restricted Posts), 6- Enhanced (Adult Workforce) - (Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)), Casual - (Travel Allowance Policy), No - (Childcare Disqualification Requirement), No - (Statutory Post)

Benefits of Working of Hull City Council:
- A competitive salary
- An excellent pension through the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
- Initially 23 days annual leave depending on length of service. You will also get eight public holidays per year, and three additional days off, one in May/August and one during the Christmas/New year period
- Career development and learning experiences from a range of training courses and learning methods
- Supportive and forward-thinking culture
- Great career development opportunities

Please ensure that you complete and submit your application by midnight prior to the closing date. Please ensure that your application demonstrates how you meet the essential criteria against the person specification as listed in the job description.

We are committed to increasing the diversity, equality, and inclusion within our workforce to represent the people we serve and build an environment in which everyone can feel like they belong. We encourage people from all backgrounds to apply.

We adopt a ‘name blind’ approach to shortlisting. Recruiting managers will not have access to personal information, including your name and contact details, until a shortlisting decision has been made. Equality monitoring information is not accessible by recruiting managers at any stage.

We reserve the right to amend the dates associated with this advert, which may include closing the advert early where required.

The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

Online searches, including social media, may be carried out as part of the recruitment process.