Job Description
Job title: Head of Service Safeguarding & Support – Interims
Job Category : Interims
Location : Civic Campus, Euclid Street, Swindon, SN1 2JW, Swindon Borough Council
Hours Per Week : 37
Start Date : Immediate start
Start Time : 09:00
End Time : 17:00
Salary: £54.41 per hour
Swindon Children’s Services are on an improvement journey. We have adopted the Family Safeguarding Model (FSM) of working and have embedded it into this service area (Child in need of Help and Protection and Court proceedings). Our recent Ofsted monitoring visit confirmed improvement is evident. 50252248 (ofsted.gov.uk)
There is a permanent staffing team in this service area – 2 x Service Managers and 7 Team Managers (each team consisting of 5 social workers). We wish to build upon the implementation of FSM so that this model of working shapes the practice across the whole directorate (including front door and children in care) and with key partners, including education colleagues. It is an exciting time to be part of this ambition.
We need an experienced manager to support the service managers to drive performance and reduce variance and consistency in this service area. This will include oversight of the PLO process and legal planning. The service is ambitious that much more need to be met in the community at Early Help level, and this will include the statutory work that is able to ‘step down’ from this service area. The sustainability of FSM is a key consideration and we wish to engage the partners connected to this model to help achieve long term sustainability.
This is a temporary role for up to 6 months. You will be directly line managed by a permanent Director in the service, and will be part of a team of Heads of Service. Swindon is demonstrating a commitment to deliver consistently good services for children and we see this role as crucial at this stage to help maintain the pace and leadership required.