The Role

Independent Scrutineer for Safeguarding Children in Kingston and Richmond     

• Are you an innovative and creative thinker, skilled in multi-agency working, and can keep the needs and perspective of the children and young people of Kingston and Richmond at the heart of everything we do?

We are moving away from safeguarding assurance based on big board meetings, and towards clearer strategic leadership which understands the local safeguarding system and our local strengths and weaknesses. We want you to help us make better use of audits which demonstrate impact upon outcomes and intelligent analysis which interprets performance data. We also want to learn from routinely talking directly to our children and young people about their lived experiences, understanding their observations about what we do well and what we need to change as a system. We want you to provide scrutiny of the effectiveness with which we are embedding a practice learning culture with all frontline staff and volunteers.

Kingston and Richmond Safeguarding Partnership (Kingston Council, Richmond Council, SW London Clinical Commissioning Group and the Metropolitan Police in SW London) would like to hear from candidates who can demonstrate our shared values and can offer high challenge and high support. You will work with our partnership leaders to develop mature systems analysis and to improve outcomes for children. If you have extensive multi-professional safeguarding operational experience and a successful record of promoting outcomes for children and/or vulnerable adults, we want to hear from you.

Kingston and Richmond are two sovereign boroughs who come together for children’s safeguarding and also have a shared children’s services workforce. Together they cover a busy and large area of SW London, bordering Inner and West London as well as Surrey. They are home to the towns of Kingston, Richmond and Twickenham and share either side of the River Thames. With vast green spaces, tourist and economic areas, they draw a large daytime population. Both boroughs are attractive locations for families with renowned schools, but they still have all the challenges to keeping children and young people safe that you would expect in any London borough. 

We welcome applications from people from a range of disciplines. You will be educated to degree level or equivalent and hold a recognised professional qualification in a discipline which could include social care, health or Police or equivalent experience at a strategic management level.

You will have: 

• substantial experience of effective leadership at a senior level in the children’s safeguarding field;
• substantial experience of working at a senior level within a multi-disciplinary context;
• substantial knowledge and understanding of statutory and voluntary organisations and how they work;
• extensive experience of deploying quality assurance to improve outcomes;
• significant experience of chairing complex professional meetings at a senior and strategic level; and
• extensive knowledge of the safeguarding agenda and related guidance.

You will bring:

• a strong moral and ethical character and you will demonstrate integrity, openness and trustworthiness;
• excellent communication and presentation skills;
• the confidence, authority and objectivity to challenge practices and hold agencies accountable;
• the ability to empower multi-agency activity for change and improvement, and
• the ability to digest and analyse complex information.

The role requires a commitment of 30 days per year with the potential for the safeguarding partners to commission further scrutiny up to an additional 6 days per year which could come from the independent scrutineer. The role will be paid at circa £650 per day and, although you are not a direct employee of the statutory partners, HMRC regulations have defined this role as subject to the intermediaries legislation.

Reviewed after six months, with an initial term contract of two years, the post is subject to annual appraisal.   

For further information about the role please contact James Thomas, Director of Children’s Services, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames via email: james.thomas@achievingforchildren.org.uk

Instruction on completing an application 

Please upload your CV and a covering letter of application (which should be no more than three sides of A4 maximum) This should detail how your suitability and experience is relevant to the range of ideal experience included in this advertisement. 

Applications should be submitted before midnight on 16^th July 2019.

Interviews will be held on 23rd July 2019, please keep all of this day free as you may only be given a few days’ notice of interview.

Useful Information

Please note that these dates are only indicative at this stage and could be subject to change.

The closing date is given as a guide. We reserve the right to close this vacancy once a sufficient number of applications has been received. Therefore, it is strongly advised that you complete and return your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

This role is being recruited by Richmond and Wandsworth Councils on behalf of Kingston and Richmond Safeguarding Children Partnership. Richmond and Wandsworth are committed to making our recruitment practices as inclusive as possible for everyone. We are committed to promoting equality and diversity and developing a culture that values differences, recognising that employees from a variety of backgrounds bring important and positive contributions to the Councils and can improve the way we deliver services. We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer.

Important Information

This post is exempted under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and as such appointment to this post will be conditional upon the receipt of a satisfactory response to a check of police records via Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) helps employers make safer recruitment decisions and prevent unsuitable people from working with vulnerable groups, including children. It replaces the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA).

Richmond and Wandsworth Councils