Role: Head of Safeguarding REF 124041
Contract Length: Until April 2026
Location: Hybrid/Reigate, Surrey - 1-2 days per week in office
IR35: Inside
Pay Rate to Intermediary: Negotiable
Spinwell is recruiting for a Head of Safeguarding for an excellent opportunity within the public sector.
RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE HEAD OF SAFEGUARDING
As lead expert for Adult Safeguarding, provide advice, support and innovative solutions to ensure the safeguarding service is developed and delivered in line with current thinking, good practice and statutory requirements.
This is a strategic leadership role for Safeguarding within Adult Social Care at the County Council. The key deliverables of the role include:
- Ensuring that the County Council, Adult Social Care is compliant with national statute, regulation and guidance with regard to safeguarding and associated practice.
- Ensuring that there are clear lines of communication between the work of County Council's Children Schools and Families directorate and the Surrey Safeguarding Children Partnership.
- Providing qualitative and quantitative data as and when required to inform managers with regard to performance internally and as a comparator to local, regional and national performance.
- Strategic lead for the quality assurance framework for providers of Adult Social Care services working jointly with health partners to provide assurance for the Council that Surrey residents receive good quality care and support services from providers regulated by the Care Quality Commission.
- Ensuring that performance in safeguarding is rated as good when compared with similar authorities.
- Identifying areas of weak practice, knowledge and understanding and advising on strategies to improve.
- Attending Surrey Safeguarding Adults Board (SSAB) and contributing to the work of the sub-groups to include chairing and assisting in the implementation of its strategic plan.
- To understand and apply the Council’s duties and responsibilities for safeguarding adults with care and support needs; preventing and detecting crime, including countering terrorism and reducing risks of radicalisation; safeguarding children and young people.
- Providing training and presentations to SCC staff and partner agencies.
- Driving innovation through co-production with people with lived experience
- Leading on integration initiatives and place-based safeguarding models with partners
- Leading on safeguarding risk registers and escalation protocols
- Negotiating shared safeguarding priorities across agencies and development of new governance as required
- Embedding learning into commissioning cycles and contract monitoring working with the ASC Academy and Principal Social Worker.
- Championing equity and inclusion in safeguarding responses, especially for underrepresented groups.
- Developing leadership capability within the safeguarding workforce
- Leading predictive analytics initiatives or AI-informed safeguarding insights and ensuring ethical safeguarding practice in emerging areas such as AI, digital surveillance, and data sharing
SKILLS/EXPERIENCE HEAD OF SAFEGUARDING JOB
- Degree or equivalent level professional qualification plus experience at a management level in a specialist area in a complex business environment.
- Authoritative understanding of the relevant legislation and practice standards, together with broader sector/commercial awareness.
- Ability to exercise a significant degree of interpretive and constructive thinking and evaluative judgement appropriately.
- Extensive knowledge of the concepts of change management, project management and continuous improvement, and their practical application.
- Ability to balance policy development with effective operational management.
- Ability to deploy advanced skills to inspire, motivate, coach and develop team members to high levels of performance.
- Strong written and oral communication and interpersonal skills with high level negotiation and influencing skills, and the ability to work collaboratively with internal and external partners/professionals.
- Proven ability to manage budgets and available resources to deliver effective support to their area of responsibility.
- Proven ability to assess risks and benefits and respond appropriately.
- Evidence of continued professional development and high level of knowledge of safeguarding and the legal context in which it is practised.
- Experience of leadership and management at senior level.
If you are a Head of Safeguarding, apply now or send your CV to Spinwell!
We welcome all applications regardless of background, in line with our commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion.
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