Role responsibilities

The Service Director - Children's Services: Quality and Improvement reports to the Executive Director of Children’s Services. The role has responsibility for:

  • children's commissioning
  • transformation - including children’s services reforms, partnerships, and the directorate's quality assurance and performance function
  • enabling directorate continuous improvement

The successful candidate will also be a member of the Children’s Services directorate management team and council’s leadership team.

The role will give you room to think innovatively and creatively, but requires you to act with purpose and precision, translating our aspirations into practical programmes and projects that deliver positive change whilst ensuring statutory compliance. It’s about a whole directorate approach to improvement that will see you bringing teams together, working closely and collaboratively with colleagues and external partners, leading our response to the national reform agenda, and strengthening the voice of children, young people and families.  

Priorities

The priority areas of work for the role includes the following:

  • Lead the bringing together a range of existing teams and functions into one service with a shared purpose, ensuring alignment and collaboration.
  • Lead on the implementation of the Families First reforms.
  • Lead our strategic approach to sufficiency across Children’s Services, ensuring the right range, quality and quantity of placements and provisions to meet the needs of looked after children and children with SEND, both now and in the future.
  • Lead the partnership to deliver Barnsley’s Children and Young People Plan and safeguarding partnership priorities.
  • Lead the development of integrated children’s health and care pathways, including mental health and emotional wellbeing, in line with the SEND code of practice and the NHS long term plan.
  • Drive continuous improvement in the quality and impact of practice across Children’s Services, ensuring that our work consistently delivers excellent outcomes.
  • Strengthen the voice of children, young people, and families in service design and delivery.
  • Lead the development of an effective commissioning strategy and plan to enable the achievement of the ambition for Children’s Services underpinned by a robust commissioning function.
  • Take a lead role in the development of enabling functions to support the work of the directorate including innovation and new practice (test, learn, grow).

What you'll need

To be successful in the role you'll need to have a deep understanding of statutory children’s services and a track record of leading change and improvement. Your first-class people skills will enable you to navigate complex systems, develop positive and lasting relationships, and bring stakeholders together with common purpose. 

You'll also need:

  • a visible, values-driven leadership style, able to inspire and influence across the council, schools, health, and community partners
  • to demonstrate a strong track record of leading transformational change and improvement
  • excellent people skills with the ability to build relationships with children, families, staff, partners, politicians, and communities, including effective stakeholder management
  • the ability to foster a culture of accountability and continuous improvement
  • an understanding of statutory children’s services, including safeguarding, education, SEND, and partnership working
  • to be creative and innovative, with a practical focus on improving outcomes for children and young people
  • the ability to lead and develop high-performing teams in a complex, multi-agency environment
  • to be confident working with senior leaders, boards, and external regulators (eg Ofsted, CQC, DfE)
  • the ability to challenge the system to achieve excellence, identify areas for improvement, and drive change
  • the ability to balance strategic vision with attention to detail and statutory compliance
  • a rigorous approach to leading programmes and projects with a clear focus on demonstrating positive change, outcomes and value added
  • a track record of sound financial management in a challenging and complex public sector environment requiring best value and diligence

Read the full job profile for the role.

How to apply

Find out how to apply for the Service Director - Children's Services: Quality and Improvement role.