Job title: Operational Director of Childrens Services

Salary: £68,800 per annum (£52,064 pro-rata)

Location: Remote – With travel across Wales

Contract/Hours: Permanent, Part-time – 28 hours per week (4 days per week)

Benefits:

29 days annual leave plus bank holidays and options to buy or sell leave
Flexible maternity, adoption, and paternity packages
Pension with up to 7% matched employer contribution with included life assurance cover
Staff discounts and Blue Light Card eligibility with 15,000 national retailers discounts
We are a Real Living Wage accredited employer

We are one of the largest children’s charities in the UK and have been making a difference to the lives of the UK’s vulnerable children for over 150 years.

Find out more about Action for Children here: Action for Children and on X, LinkedIn, Facebook or YouTube to get to know us better.

About the role

Are you a strong communicator and creative thinker with a flair for innovation who is focused and passionate about changing the lives of children and their families?

We have a unique opportunity for an Operational Director of Children's Services to provide leadership and management across Wales. This is an exciting and rewarding role with the opportunity to make a huge personal impact.

Reporting to the National Director of Wales, you'll lead, develop and manage a dedicated team of managers who deliver a range of children's services across a specified area.

Wales has ambitious plans to grow residential, fostering, criminal exploitation and mental health services whilst ensuring our existing service footprint remains strong and sustainable.

This is an exciting opportunity for an inspirational leader who wants to make a difference to the lives of children and young people as part of a passionate and ambitious Wales team.

How you’ll create brighter futures

Acting a Responsible Individual for regulated Childrens Services and undertake a fit and proper person test with CIW.
Providing leadership and overall management for a range of Children's services (including Childrens Residential Homes), while working collaboratively with peers and stakeholders to make most of our resources
Having responsibility for direct reports who'll be a range of committed staff with varying levels of expertise and managing their performance
Monitoring contract management operations and ensuring effective governance by creating performance reports and supplying the information to relevant committees
Guiding our sustainability and growth plans to make sure we are meeting or exceeding targets
Oversee local tenders and grants and subsequent implementation and delivery plans
Applying the highest standards of safeguarding across your patch and reporting on developments
Operating within the local political context, adhering to legislative and regulatory requirements and build collaborative working relationships with local and national bodies, local government and their officials

Let’s talk about you

A relevant professional qualification in Education, Health or Social Care
A management qualification or working towards S/NVQ level 5 in management or DMS leading to MBA
Strong people leadership including (though not limited to) Culture, Health and Safety, Financial, Performance and Retention
Experience of Safeguarding and delivering or managing children's services
Detailed knowledge of the Social Services (Wales) Act 2014 and RISCA (Wales) Act 2016, including other relevant legislation and how this applies to us
Commercial awareness and the ability to identify new sources of revenue and business opportunities
The availability to travel to various locations in Wales when required, though we are flexible, and this can be discussed further at interview.

Good to know

We are unable to offer sponsorship for this role

For more information about our Operational Director of Childrens Services role, please review our full job description by visiting our careers page.

If, for any reason, you need support with your application, please contact Scott Jones at recruitmentservice@actionforchildren.org.uk quoting reference 11659 and we'll be happy to give you any support you require.

Diversity, equality, and inclusion

At Action for Children, we're dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace. We actively encourage applications from Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic, and disabled candidates as they are under-represented within Action for Children. We want to take deliberate and purposeful action to ensure equal opportunity to all groups in society and for Action for Children.

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Operational Director of Childrens Services