Team Manager - Children in Care. Job in Hereford Education & Training Jobs

Herefordshire Council is recruiting a Team Manager into their Looked After Children (LAC) service. This is a high-impact leadership post focused on strong oversight, confident decision-making and delivering permanence and stability for children in care.

Salary and incentives:

• Salary up to £60,915
• £4,000 retention bonus (added onto salary)
• £10,000 relocation bonus/package (subject to eligibility)
• £10,000 welcome bonus (paid in two increments)
• Hybrid working (balanced office/home set-up)

Key responsibilities:

• As Team Manager in LAC, you will be responsible for the quality, pace and impact of practice across the team, ensuring children experience stable care and timely permanence planning.
• Lead and manage a team of Social Workers/Senior Social Workers and associated staff, ensuring safe, high-quality casework and clear professional standards.
• Provide regular reflective supervision, case direction and oversight with a consistent focus on risk management, permanence planning, timeliness and avoidance of drift, quality of analysis and recording.
• Manage allocation of work, caseload balance, capacity and workflow, ensuring statutory requirements are met (visits, reviews, care planning and key deadlines).
• Set expectations, monitor performance, address underperformance appropriately, and build a team culture that balances support with accountability.
• Maintain oversight of practice through case audits, dip sampling and management sign-off.
• Track performance against statutory timescales and learn from complaints, feedback and internal quality assurance.
• Ensure high-quality care and permanence plans, pathway planning where relevant, preparation for and engagement with IRO processes, and direct work that is purposeful and evidenced.
• Drive and quality assure permanence pathways including reunification, long-term fostering, Special Guardianship Orders (SGO) and adoption where applicable.
• Provide active oversight of placement stability, escalation and problem-solving when placements are at risk of disruption.
• Ensure children’s lived experience is central to planning: participation, identity, education, health and emotional wellbeing are consistently addressed.
• Lead effective partnership working with IROs, education, health, CAMHS, providers, commissioning, legal services and other partners.
• Represent the service confidently in complex professional arenas and support the team to maintain strong thresholds and defensible decision-making.
• Provide management oversight on cases with court proceedings, legal planning and safeguarding history, ensuring the team’s work is evidence-led, analytical and timely.
• Quality assure court-related documentation where required (statements, care plans, chronologies, analysis) and ensure professionals are well-prepared for hearings.
• Ensure timely, high-quality recording and management oversight on the council’s electronic case management system.
• Familiarity with mainstream children’s systems such as Liquidlogic (LCS) or Mosaic is advantageous, with ability to use dashboards/workflows for performance oversight.

Non-negotiable requirements:

• Current/recent Team Manager experience in UK Children’s Services (essential).
• UK local authority experience (statutory environment).
• Strong background in Looked After Children or demonstrable experience across court work and safeguarding/assessment at a level that translates into managing LAC practice and permanence.
• Social Work England registration.
• Driver with full UK driving licence.
• Strong written and analytical standards; able to quality assure complex work and coach others to improve.

What makes a strong applicant for Herefordshire:

• Evidence of improved outcomes (timeliness, drift reduction, placement stability, permanence progression).
• Clear management style: confident, consistent oversight and the ability to bring practitioners with you.
• Comfortable operating in a service with performance expectations and improvement focus.

If you’re a proven Team Manager and can start quickly, or have a clear notice period, get in touch. We offer up to £1,000 for a Manager referral if you know someone.