Head of Service

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced social care leader to join us at team Hull! The successful candidate will work with two other locality-based Heads of Service (North & West) to implement Hull’s response to Families First Partnership Reforms, building on our existing ‘test and learn’ model of Family Help teams.

Our Family Help teams include Family Help Social Workers, and ‘otherly’ qualified Family Help Lead Workers, bringing a wide range of skills and experiences to children and families in their community-based settings, working closely with our amazing partners.

ROLE AND PURPOSE

• A family focused approach.
• Delivery of effective early intervention to produce better outcomes and reduce pressure on acute services.
• Integrated working that supports increasingly efficient management arrangements and the ability to rationalise assessment and recording processes to enable high quality services for children, young people and families.
• Development of an explicit and shared value base within Children & Families and with partner agencies in the knowledge that it is not what we say but how we behave that makes things work.
• A vision of integrated locality based delivery that keeps children and young people safe and engaged in learning, targets limited resources and works together with our partners to build on our strengths and good practice and ensures cross-cutting work to address the health agenda, Safer Communities and joint work with Adult Social Care & Housing Services.
• To ensure that the work of all services contributes to shaping and achieving corporate strategic priorities.

All Heads of Service (HoS) will be required to demonstrate how their work, and that of their teams, models these principles. Specifically this post requires the HoS to:

• Be a member of the Safeguarding senior leadership team (SLT) and deputise for/ represent the Assistant Director and Corporate Director as required.
• Lead and manage the range of safeguarding arrangements for children, young people and families in the city, including assessment, support and preventative work and provision for looked after children.
• Lead and develop the whole system of children’s social care.
• Strategically develop and plan for the safeguarding needs of children and young people in order to ensure that city-wide partnerships are equipped to meet current and future demands and challenges.
• Ensure the effective discharging of the Local Authority’s (LA) statutory duties for Safeguarding.

PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITIES:

1. Strategy – Lead the development and delivery of plans for the future to ensure that Children and Families city-wide partnerships are challenged, supported and equipped to meet the demands of the future safeguarding needs of children and young people. Develop safeguarding policy for Children & Families. Bring together colleagues from within and beyond the LA, through pro-active liaison with key partners, to drive the delivery of strategic plans. Advise on DfE emerging agendae and on other statutory issues and carry out, as required, review and development. Specifically promote activities which satisfy strategic objectives for Children & Families including key targets and priorities reflected in Children and Young People’s Plan. Liaise with the leaders across the spectrum of safeguarding to ensure that policy and strategy are implemented to suit local need and resources. Ensure that services are appropriately prioritised, planned, delivered, monitored and evaluated in accordance with the requirements set by the range of inspection bodies. Provide effective leadership to the development and coordination of all areas of services across the Directorate to ensure that statutory obligations are met. Redesign and shape existing and future provisions for the Council and lead the development of initiatives that promote the Children & Families Partnership and the delivery of integrated Children’s Services. Manage the associated change process and related procurement, operational delivery and performance management.
2. Customer Focus – Engage with service users effectively to gain feedback and insight about provision and services. Develop an effective working relationship with corporate ‘Business Partners’ so that a highly pro-active approach is taken to balance service and corporate demands and meet the needs of schools, children, young people and their families.
3. Performance Management – A leader who inspires and demands continuous customer and value focus and improvement across the service and directorate. Demonstrates high engagement of staff. Exemplifies an effective performance improvement framework for his/her staff. Makes decisions about the deployment of budgets and resources and is accountable for budget within delegation and ensures that budgets are effectively administered and controlled, taking remedial action where appropriate and advising on service priorities in accordance with strategy. Develops and maintains a scheme of delegations which fits the purpose.
4. Leadership – is an active member of the service’s SLT and deputises for/represents the Assistant Director and Corporate Director as required. Has a lead responsibility for promoting work of Children & Families in the following context: (i) with the public media (ii) with elected members (iii) within the overall Council and across the partnership (iv) regionally and nationally. Lead, co-ordinate and monitor the work of Safeguarding. Provides systemic leadership and management oversight of the system of social care, end to end. Ensures that the system serves to help and support disabled children, young people, other children and young people identified in need, those in need of protection, those who are ‘looked after’ and care leavers. Ensures the sound management of the system and of the people who operate the system, that the managers and staff understand the expectations of them, their roles and responsibilities. That managers and staff understand what they can expect from the senior leadership of the system. Leads the full and continuing implementation of system re-design and the continuous development and improvement of the system. Leads the developments of a whole approach to systemic practice across the partnership. Provides high level leadership and expertise to support effective risk management in front-line practice across the partnership. Supports key decision-makers in the system, namely Team Managers and Group Managers to ensure decisions about children’s lives are informed by sound assessment and judgement. Provides reflective challenge and support that is consistent with systemic practice. Provides leadership and supervision to key managers, in particular group managers, ensuring due focus on the purpose of the system, the quality of the work and the positive impact for children, young people and families. Provides leadership and management to ensure the highest quality care for children and young people ‘looked after’, in all settings, in order to maximise life chances for children and young people looked after and care leavers. Leads partnerships and leads collaboratively with others to ensure that the system of help and support for children, young people and families is maximised through partnerships and partnership-working. Provides leadership to the partnership to support the safeguarding of children across the whole system of early and social care.
5. Responsible for the recruitment and selection of staff within service area. Contribute to the development and application of workforce strategies and procedures to comply with the Council’s duties as an employer and to secure positive and productive industrial and employee relations. Effectively manage grievance, sickness absence, disciplinary and capability functions.
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.

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. 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.

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.