Enfield Council
Service Manager Children in Care
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Reference Number: PEO-002745
Salary: HOS2 £70,752 to £90,921
Advert closing date: 10/08/2026
Department: People
Location: Thomas Hardy House
Contract type: Permanent
Division: Not specified
Hours Per Week: 36
Contract End Date: Not specified
Interview Date: 13/08/2026
Job Description
Role overview
As Service Manager for Children in Care, you will lead the social work team to deliver safe, stable and ambitious care planning that improves outcomes for children.
You will drive high-quality, relational and trauma-informed practice, working with partners to improve permanence, placement stability, education, health and wellbeing.
Reporting to the Head of Children in Care and Care Leavers, you will support service strategy, transformation and continuous improvement.
What You’ll Do
- Deliver child-centred care planning focused on safety, stability, permanence and wellbeing.
- Lead service improvement and embed strong relational practice.
- Ensure strong performance, quality assurance, and statutory compliance.
- Strengthen partnerships to support stability, family time, lifelong networks and better outcomes.
- Ensure support reflects children’s voices and individual needs.
- Represent Enfield with partners, Members and regional forums.
What We’re Looking For
- Senior leadership experience within statutory children’s social care services and experience of Family Safeguarding.
- Ability to lead high-performing teams, manage complex services and deliver improvement.
- Able to lead change while maintaining good services.
- Strong understanding of children in care and the importance of family and lifelong networks.
- Experience managing large budgets effectively.
- Knowledge of statutory frameworks, Ofsted and quality assurance.
- Experience leading change in complex organisations.
- Politically astute and confident with Members and senior stakeholders.
- Excellent communication, influencing and partnership skills.
- Qualified Social Worker registered with Social Work England.
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Why Join Us
- A key leadership role improving outcomes and shaping change.
- Opportunity to shape services that make a difference.
- Collaborative, forward-thinking leadership culture.
- Commitment to development and improvement.
- An ambitious, diverse borough with strong partnerships.
Contact Details
If you would like to know more about the role, please contact Karen Alderton on 02081322314 for an informal discussion or to arrange a visit to the team.
If you have any difficulties accessing this information, please contact Recruitment Consultant Debola Olufon at debola.olufon@enfield.gov.uk
Enfield’s Social Care Centre of Excellence confirms our commitment to creating and maintaining an environment for new and existing staff to be the best and deliver high quality social work to our most vulnerable children and young people. It brings our recruitment, professional development and support into the one portal for social care staff to see what we have to offer and how we are supporting them to continue to learn and develop on a professional basis. For more information please visit https://new.enfield.gov.uk/centreofexcellence/about-us/
“This authority is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share in this commitment”.
We reserve the right to close this vacancy once a sufficient number of applications have been received. Therefore, we advise that you complete fully and submit your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.
We do not see your name or title when shortlisting your application. This is one of many initiatives to build a more talented and diverse workforce. However, if you put your name on your CV or Statement it will be visible to us. For this reason, we ask that you do not include your name on these documents. Please note it is your responses to the Essential/Desirable criteria, as detailed in the Job Description and Person Specification which is available on the job advert, that will determine if you are shortlisted for an interview, therefore we encourage you to always address the essential and desirable criteria in your application/CV.
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Why it's great to work for Enfield Council:
- An excellent pension through the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).
- Up to 32 days annual leave depending on grade and length of service. You will also get eight public holidays per year and an extra day off at Christmas.
- A blend of remote and office based working for most roles.
- Interest free season ticket loan repayable over three or ten months.
- Career development and learning experiences from a range of training courses and learning methods.
- Employee Assistance Programme to provide advice and counselling services. This is a free and confidential service available to staff and members of their family.
- Health and leisure discounts and tax-free bikes for work.
- 1 month's paid sabbatical for registered Social Workers working in Children's Social Care.
We are passionate about our people and how we deliver services to our community in Enfield. That’s why we encourage a culture that puts our customers at the heart of everything we do - by empowering our people to work together to find solutions, be open, honest and respectful, take responsibility and listen and learn. If you value these behaviours too, we’d love to hear from you - and of course we are always happy to talk flexible working, click here to find out more.
If you have previously applied for this role within the past 6 months, unfortunately, a second application will not be considered.
Certain posts in the Council are ‘politically restricted’ which means that staff employed in these posts may not undertake political activities either in or outside the workplace and therefore if candidates are affiliated with any political party, we may not be able to proceed with their application.
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