The City of Edinburgh Council
Service Manager - North East Locality Office
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Service Manager (Children's Services, North East Practice Team)
North East Locality Office
Salary: £67,457 - £80,569
Hours: 36 per week
Every child deserves to grow up safe, loved and able to reach their full potential. As Service Manager for North East Practice Team, you will play a pivotal role in ensuring that children at risk of harm receive the right support at the right time. This is an opportunity to lead a skilled social work team, drive excellence in practice and shape a team that makes a lasting difference to children, young people and families.
We are looking for an experienced, values-driven leader who is passionate about delivering high-quality, relationship-based social work. You will foster a culture of continuous improvement, collaboration and learning, while ensuring that children’s voices remain at the heart of everything we do.
Working closely with partners across health, education, police and the third sector, you’ll champion effective safeguarding, promote innovation and ensure services meet the highest standards of practice, governance and performance. If you are committed to The Promise, children’s rights and improving outcomes for families, we’d love to hear from you.
The Service Manager will:
- Provide strategic and operational leadership, ensuring the safety and wellbeing of children and young people is at the centre of all decision-making.
- Lead, motivate and support Team Leaders and their staff groups to deliver high-quality, relationship-based social work practice.
- Ensure statutory responsibilities, and local procedures are fulfilled, including child protection, looked after children, permanence and corporate parenting duties.
- Drive continuous improvement through quality assurance, performance management, internal audits, and learning from reviews and inspections.
- Champion a culture of professional curiosity, reflective supervision, trauma-informed practice and continuous professional development.
- Ensure effective workforce planning, recruitment, retention and succession planning, promoting staff wellbeing and high professional standards.
- Develop and maintain effective partnerships with Health, Education, Police Scotland, the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA), the third sector and other key agencies to improve outcomes for children and families.
- Lead on complex safeguarding issues, providing strategic oversight and professional advice on high-risk and sensitive cases.
- Manage service budgets effectively, ensuring resources are deployed efficiently while delivering best value.
- Ensure robust governance arrangements are in place, including oversight of risk management, complaints, audits, data quality and statutory reporting.
- Analyse performance information and use data to drive service improvement, reduce inequalities and improve outcomes.
- Promote the voices, rights and participation of children, young people and families in service development and decision-making.
- Lead implementation of national policy and legislative developments.
- Foster an inclusive, collaborative culture that promotes equality, diversity, human rights and anti-discriminatory practice.
- Undertake any other duties appropriate to the role and commensurate with the level of responsibility.
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This post is regulated work with children and/or protected adults under the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007. The preferred candidate will be required to join the PVG Scheme or undergo a PVG Scheme update check. Where an individual has spent a continuous period of 3 months or more out with the UK in the last 5 years, an Overseas Criminal Record Check will be required. You will be required to provide this check. An unconditional offer of employment and commencement in the post will be subject to the outcome of both these pre-employment checks being deemed satisfactory.
We are committed to a diverse and inclusive workforce where everyone feels valued and able to be their best. We particularly encourage applications from women for senior roles, as well as people from minority ethnic backgrounds, people with disabilities or neurodivergent people, care experienced people, carers and LGBT+ people across all levels of the organisation, all of whom are currently underrepresented. All applicants will be considered fairly based on skills and experience. Disabled and care-experienced applicants who meet the minimum job criteria will be guaranteed an interview.
Find out more about our commitment to equalities https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/work-us/inclusive-edinburgh/4
As part of our goal to improve organisational culture and create a great place to work together for the people of Edinburgh, we want to make sure we're recruiting the best people. We’re interested not only in your skills and experience but also in your approach to work. Therefore, part of our interview process will be an assessment of how you would bring Our Behaviours of Respect, Integrity and Flexibility into your ways of working.
You can find out more on Our Behaviours web page Our Behaviours – The City of Edinburgh Council
Our salary range typically reflects the initial starting salary and annually increases until it reaches the top of the range.
Happy to talk flexible working.
Follow us on X at @edincounciljobs
View Service Manager job description https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/file/40620/service-manager-cec1494-jd
View Service Manager person specification https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/file/40621/service-manager-ps-10-08
THE CITY OF EDINBURGH COUNCIL
About Us:
Are you keen to shape the future of Scotland’s capital city? The City of Edinburgh Council is looking for dedicated and enthusiastic individuals to work with us and deliver key services across our capital city. We’re the second largest local authority in Scotland with a workforce of over 19,000 who all play a crucial role in maintaining and supporting vital services to over 500,000 residents. We offer an incredible variety of career opportunities across a broad range of sectors. Join us and you’ll find a role where you can make a difference and grow your career.
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Our Culture:
Our Behaviours, respect, integrity, and flexibility guide everything that we do, and we strive to make sure all colleagues feel valued and have a sense of belonging in the workplace. We want to make sure that we bring people into our roles who demonstrate Our Behaviours and are dedicated and committed to our purpose of serving our community. We are focused on delivering excellent customer service to meet citizens needs and make the city a better place.
You can find out more on Our Behaviours web page Our Behaviours – The City of Edinburgh Council.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:
We recognise the benefits that diverse perspectives, experiences and backgrounds bring to our organisation, and we’re committed to employing a workforce that represents the population of the city we serve. We particularly encourage applicants from under-represented groups including women, LGBT+ people, racially minoritised groups, people with disabilities and people who are neurodivergent.
As part of our commitment to inclusive recruitment, we're delighted to announce that we have extended our guaranteed interview scheme to include all applicants who are or have been care experienced, and who meet the essential criteria for the post. This extends our current arrangements of being a Disability Confident Employer, that guarantee an interview to applicants who meet the criteria for the post and who declare a disability.
Happy to talk flexible working.
Colleague Support and Wellbeing
As outlined in our People Strategy 2024-27, we aim to nurture a healthy workforce where we can all thrive. We offer regular events, initiatives and learning opportunities covering a range of different health and wellbeing topics.
We’re committed to supporting employees to achieve a healthy work life balance. There are several policies in place to support this ranging from flexible work options to career breaks. Our full suite of employment policies can be found here.
We have a range of support options available including access to counselling, a mental health support service, an occupational health service, speak up supporters and a colleague listening service.
Reasonable Adjustments:
We’re committed to providing an inclusive and accessible experience at work for all our colleagues and we’ll work hard to ensure that we meet the changing needs of colleagues throughout their time with us. We’re also geared up to support all candidates who may require reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process. Candidates invited for interview, should let the hiring manager know what they need, and they will do everything they can to accommodate your request.
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