Our leadership team and council structure

Our council is structured into five directorates:

  • Children's Services
  • Core Services
  • Growth and Sustainability
  • Place Health and Adult Social Care
  • Public Health and Communities

Sarah Norman is the Chief Executive of Barnsley Council. Sarah leads our senior management team (SMT).

Our SMT is responsible for making sure that policies approved and decisions made by councillors are implemented effectively. Issues that go to the SMT that need a political decision then go onto Cabinet. Where needed, these will also go onto a meeting of Full Council.

Our leadership team

Sarah Norman

Sarah Norman

Chief Executive

You can contact Sarah Norman by emailing sarahnorman@barnsley.gov.uk

Carly Speechley

Carly Speechley

Children’s Services – Executive Director

• Children’s Social Care and Safeguarding - Matthew Boud (Service Director).
• Education, Early Start and Prevention – Nina Sleight (Service Director).

Wendy Popplewell

Wendy Popplewell

Core Services - Executive Director

• Business Improvement, HR and Communication – Michael Potter (Service Director).
• Customer, Information and Digital Services – David Robinson (Service Director).
• Law and Governance and Chief Monitoring Officer - Sukdave Ghuman (Service Director).

Matt O’Neill

Matt O’Neill

Growth and Sustainability – Executive Director

• Environment and Transport – Paul Castle (Service Director).
• Regeneration and Culture – Kathy McArdle (Service Director).

Wendy Lowder

Wendy Lowder

Place Health and Adult Social Care - Executive Director

• Adult and Wellbeing – Julie Chapman (Service Director).
• Commissioning - Richard Lynch (Service Director).

Anna Hartley

Anna Hartley

Public Health and Communities – Executive Director

• Public Health – Carrie Abbott (Service Director).
• Communities – Phil Hollingsworth (Service Director).

Neil Copley

Neil Copley

Director of Finance for Core Services

Our directorates

Each of our directorates include a wide range of services. Find out about the services they cover below.

Children's Services

  • Access, assessment, care planning and reviews
  • Advocacy; adoption and fostering
  • Children's residential and leaving care service
  • Children's social care
  • Early help
  • Early years and family information services
  • Education strategic planning, including school improvement strategy
  • Education welfare
  • Improvement advisers and brokerage
  • Integrated youth services
  • Outdoor education
  • Quality assurance
  • Quality of early years provision and integrated child provision for two to three year olds, including family hubs
  • School admissions
  • School governor services
  • School organisation and school places, including strategies for academies and free schools
  • Social care and safeguarding quality and standards
  • Special educational needs
  • Supporting families
  • Youth Council, youth voice and participation

Core Services

  • Applications management and support (web mobile working)
  • Business analysis
  • Business improvement, including business intelligence
  • Commercial and transactional services, including:
    • Accounting
    • Budgeting
    • Financial assessments
    • Professional and specialist finance
  • Communications and marketing
  • Customer resolution, Barnsley 2030 and policy, performance and equalities
  • Customer experience and digital strategies, web content and design
  • Customer services and contact centre
  • Customer services development
  • Elections and land charges
  • Governance and business support
  • Governance support to joint authorities
  • Health, safety and emergency resilience
  • Human resources and organisation development
  • Information governance and security
  • Information technology hardware and software development, configuration and maintenance, application training, and customer liaison and support
  • IT procurement
  • Legal services
  • Records management
  • Registration service
  • Risk management, internal audit and corporate fraud, corporate commissioning, procurement and contracting
  • Support for overview and scrutiny
  • Taxation and benefits assessments (including free school meals administration) and debt recovery
  • Town twinning

Growth and Sustainability

Environment and Transport

  • Bereavement services
  • Car parks and car parking
  • Clean and green parks and allotments
  • Climate change, energy sustainability and carbon management
  • Drainage, reservoirs and flood management
  • Fleet management
  • Grounds maintenance, horticulture and arboriculture
  • Highways and network management, bridges and footpath maintenance
  • Safer roads and school crossing patrol strategy and operations
  • Sports and active lifestyles
  • Street cleansing, litter picking and fly-tipping
  • Street lighting
  • Trans Pennine Trail
  • Transport, including home to school travel and looked after children and specialist transport
  • Waste management and recycling

Regeneration and Culture

  • Adult learning and apprenticeships
  • Building support and porterage (excluding records management)
  • Community asset transfers and assets of community value
  • Culture and visitor economy
  • District markets
  • Housing strategy and growth
  • Hybrid mail, parcel services and digital printing
  • Planning enforcement
  • Private sector housing, affordable housing and contract and client management for Berneslai Homes
  • Property valuations, condition surveys and management of maintenance
  • Regeneration
  • Support for business and start-ups, business growth and inward investment
  • Spatial planning and infrastructure, including:
    • Building control and development control
    • Highways development control
    • South Yorkshire mines advisory service
  • Strategic asset management, including acquisition and disposals
  • Tenanted non-residential property management, and management of PFI and BSF schools
  • Town centre management, including town centre market, The Glass Works and strategic market development
  • Transport strategy including South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA)
  • Worklessness, skills and enterprise

Place Health and Adult Social Care

  • Adult assessment and care management
  • Assessment care planning
  • Commissioning
  • Disabled Facilities Grants and equipment and adaptations
  • Emergency duty team
  • Health and social care integration
  • Independent living at home services, day opportunities and supporting living, and carers support
  • Safeguarding and social workers
  • Self-directed support teams
  • Sensory impairment services

Public Health and Communities

  • Area councils and community engagement, volunteering, and relationship with the third sector and private sector
  • Community cohesion
  • Community health, wellbeing and promoting healthy lifestyles
  • Community safety and enforcement
  • Community safety, domestic violence, victim and witness support
  • Core offer to the clinical commissioning group for health care and health improvement, and public health strategy and advice
  • Drugs and alcohol services, including prevention
  • Graffiti removal
  • Libraries
  • Licensing that falls within council remit
  • Public health protection, including:
    • Dog warden service
    • Environmental health
    • Regulatory services
    • Trading standards
  • Support for Gypsies and Travellers
  • Support for landlords
  • Welfare rights and housing options