Southend-on-Sea City Council is a Unitary local authority, providing vital services to meet the needs of the local community. We employ around 1,800 staff who are working alongside our partners and local communities to deliver the Southend 2050 ambition and make lives better for the people of Southend.

Working for Southend-on-Sea City Council offers a challenging and rewarding career in local government within a collaborative and innovate environment, with the benefit of flexible working practices to support a positive work-life balance. As a Unitary Authority, we are responsible for all local government functions ranging from social services, transport, public health and parks through to planning, trading standards, community safety and education, so we offer a wide range of career opportunities. The diversity of our economy and communities and investment in a number of exciting regeneration projects makes our Council a great place to work, learn and make a difference.

Are you an aspiring and passionate leader that demonstrates high support and high challenge (restorative practice) to achieve the best outcomes for our adults in Southend-on-Sea?

Southend-on-Sea City Council is on a journey to develop services that showcase best practice and services. As part of the collaborative group, this means leaders, practitioners and managers in Southend celebrate effective and safe interventions.

The post holder will have direct responsibility for our Living Well Service, which incorporates the Adult Disability Team and Adult Mental Health Team. The successful candidate will be an integral part of the senior operational team to assist the Heads of Adult Social Care to ensure the Council meets its legal and statutory obligations and the strategic vision for residents of Southend City Council.

You will be joining at a time as we launch our new Connected Southend Model, which promotes a prevention and recovery approach in collaboration with health/private and voluntary sector colleagues. Our approach builds on the vibrancy and rich cultural heritage of Southend to ensure that we provide the very best care, support and information which assists people to lead the lives they want.

As a leader, you demonstrate and describe the high standards and expectations we want to achieve; you enable others and develop services and support.

As a leader, you communicate and drive services successfully to ensure they are impactful and effective.

Leading services and teams to share current practice and learning across services and form an integral part of the wider leadership group to showcase our achievements through performance and inspections.

With in-depth knowledge of legislation and research in your profession, you can say and show what ‘good’ looks like, inspire others to achieve and celebrate success.

The role of Service Manager is pivotal in ensuring that staff are supported to deliver high quality services, so that families experience skilled, robust and creative relationship-based social work intervention. This is consistent with the Council’s practice model and effects sustained change.

You will provide clear and visible leadership and management for the Operational Social Care Teams, leading the workforce to promote strengths and asset-focused practice, enabling outcome-focused practice and encouraging continuing professional development and positive reputational perception of the social work profession. You will be responsible for the performance management of the teams and will ensure effective governance based on evidence and best practice guidance.

As the Service Manager, you will be responsible for the direct line management of 2 reports and maintaining oversight of quality and performance across their teams and practitioners.

The expectation is that you will be office-based 3 days a week. You will have the opportunity to engage in the Frontline Pathways Programme for Social Work Service Managers, to support your future career progression. In addition, you will have access to a leadership hub and management training for your role.

To be successful in this position, you must be able to work in the UK, have a recognised Social Work qualification and be registered with Social Work England, ideally with post-graduate management and leadership qualifications, but this is not essential.

The role requires experience to develop and maintain effective relationships with partners and other external bodies (regionally and nationally) and use these relationships to continually improve service delivery and promote the community of Southend.

Additional requirements include being able to analyse data and QA information to identify areas of practice that require improvement and make appropriate recommendations. Finally, you must be able to work collaboratively and possess first-class communication skills.

Pension:
Southend-on-Sea City Council provide membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) for employees aged under 75. The LGPS is a generous scheme and provides you with a future income, independent of share prices and stock market fluctuations.

Leave Entitlements:

We offer our employees a generous leave entitlement from 25 days up to 32 days based on length of service (Continuous service). Southend-on-Sea City Council also offer a range of flexible working and family-friendly leave.

Here at Southend-on-Sea City Council we also offer our employees free access to a benefit portal that provides access to wellbeing support and a range of salary sacrifice schemes to help spread the cost of items, including:

Bicycles, cars, electronics and gym membership.

The portal also provides access to a range of discounts on products and services including retail, food shopping, travel, dining out and leisure activities.