The Role

Social Work England are the specialist regulator for social work in England, focused on enabling positive change in social work. Every day, social workers support millions of people to improve their chances in life. We are taking a new approach to regulating social workers in their vital roles. We believe in the power of collaboration and share a common goal with those we regulate – to protect the public, enable positive change and ultimately improve people’s lives.

We believe that the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) are central to us being an effective regulator and employer.

Working to the head of EDI, this role supports Social Work England’s commitment to ensuring that EDI and co-production remain our guiding principles in all of our work.

The Inclusion and Co-production Manager will provide operational leadership and management and has a cross-organisational focus. This role will lead the development of policy and auditing processes in relation to co-production and EDI, ensuring that internal and external stakeholders are engaged in assessing our performance against benchmarks so recommendations can be made for improvement in our practice as an employer and as a regulator.

This role will work closely with the people and development team and provide expert advice and guidance on good practice in EDI and co-production matters, and ensuring all of our colleagues understand the significance of EDI and coproduction to their particular work.

What you will do

• Provide expert advice, guidance and challenge on EDI and co-production to colleagues and establish innovative ways to engage with our people to embed best practice in these areas.
• Lead the development and management of the National Advisory Forum (NAF) to fulfil its role effectively as a critical friend to Social Work England and as the epicentre of co-production across the organisation. Ensure the smooth running of the forum, identifying risk, escalation and identifying and implementing effective solutions. Lead on the for recruitment, induction and succession planning for the group and relationship management with the Board and executive leadership team.
• Work closely with the internal quality assurance and customer experience team and data protection team to manage feedback, complaints and information requests relating to EDI and co-production. Investigate concerns and drafting responses for approval from the head of EDI and other key stakeholders.
• Work collaboratively with the people and development team to ensure alignment between the EDI action plan and people plan.
• Monitor and report on EDI and co-production activity and data and prepare written reports for a range of stakeholders including executive leadership team, board and committees.
• Lead on benchmarking activities for EDI and co-production to evaluate our organisational effectiveness. Make recommendations to improve our organisational performance based on data and insights and the implementation of identified solutions.
• Manage and influence external EDI and co-production engagement opportunities with a wide range of stakeholders working closely alongside our engagement and external relations team.
• Be accountable for the implementation, and development of our equality impact process, ensuring plans, policies and processes take full account of our obligations under the Equality Act 2010.
• Build and maintain relationships at all levels in the business, both internally and externally.
• Identify system and process improvements to most effectively make use of resources within the EDI and co-production team.
• Deputise for the head of EDI as necessary.