Team Manager-Safeguarding

Overall purpose of the post To lead, manage and direct a Northamptonshire County Council social care team for children and young people, including statutory child protection and regulated adoption and fostering services to ensure that all children who are the responsibility of the relevant area team or centrally based service are safeguarded.

To improve outcomes for children and young people in receipt of these services who are looked after by the local authority, deemed to be children in need or in need of protection from significant harm (as defined by the 1989 Children Act) and therefore are amongst the most vulnerable in society. To deliver the Northamptonshire County Council’s statutory responsibilities to safeguard and promote the welfare of these children.

Principal responsibilities

To lead, manage and direct the day-to-day operation of children’s social care teams, comprising qualified social workers and family support staff. This involves allocation of work and prioritising workload across the teams, taking case related decisions in accordance with the scheme of delegated authority for children’s social care services. All duties must be carried out in accordance with prescribed standards, procedures and protocols, and within the relevant legislation governing the particular service area, to ensure the safeguarding of children within the community or statutory settings (children and young people subject to a child protection or child in need plan, subject to legal proceedings and/or looked after

To recruit, supervise, appraise, and develop staff in line with the Council’s requirements and in accordance with the statutory requirements for the relevant service area, to ensure that staff have the relevant skills, knowledge and training to provide an efficient and effective service.

To manage budgets to ensure efficient and effective use of resources, capturing patterns of expenditure to inform budget planning and setting within the Directorate.

To develop and maintain partnership and multi-agency working, in order to ensure that services and agencies work together effectively to assess risk and respond to identified need to safeguard children and to promote effective information sharing with partner agencies. This will include proactively developing relationships with schools and other partners in local operational teams (LOTs) to promote effective prevention and early intervention and ensure that children, young people and families experience a smooth transition between targeted and specialist social care services.

To develop and write the team plan which ensures that the relevant service contributes to meeting the objectives and performance targets set within the Children and Young People’s Directorate’s Service Plan and the Children and Young People’s Strategic Partnership’s Children and Young People’s Plan; to ensure that an efficient and effective service is provided, and to continually develop and improve the service for service users, performance managing the team to achieve the relevant objectives and targets. Developing the team plan will include the effective analysis of local need so that the service managers and county wide strategic planners can fine tune the deployment of resources to local need.

To secure service improvements through effective audit, quality assurance, management of data systems, performance management of staff and timely management of complaints in accordance with the Council’s statements of required practice and external regulation and inspection.

To ensure that staff are managed and all services are delivered in accordance with Northamptonshire County Council’s Equality Policy.

To ensure that health and safety requirements are met in relation to the relevant team and service location.

To carry out any other duties which fall within the broad spirit, scope and purpose of this job description and which are commensurate with the grade of the post, including deputising for their line manager and representing the service as appropriate on internal and external projects and leading on those initiatives where appropriate to the role.