Corporate Director, Families, Children and Wellbeing

Few places are quite like Brighton & Hove. Vibrant, diverse, creative and proudly different, it's a city with huge opportunity, but also significant inequalities.

We are looking for an exceptional leader to help us deliver for every child, family and community.

As Corporate Director, Families, Children & Wellbeing, you will be statutory director of children's services and lead public health, community cohesion and libraries to create a healthy city where people can thrive. Brighton & Hove City Council Plan

You will inherit strong foundations. Outstanding children's social care, strong Local Area SEND arrangements, Best Start family hubs and an established youth offer but inequality, rising demand, complexity and financial pressures mean we need to think differently.

We need an innovative leader to build on what works while being bold about change, forge strong partnerships across health, education, police and our voluntary and community sector, and harness data, digital and AI to deliver better outcomes and sustainable services.

As part of our corporate leadership team, you will help shape the whole council and lead us as a learning organisation that is connected, confident, innovative and creative, diverse and inclusive, and healthy and psychologically safe.

If you bring energy, curiosity and ambition, and want to lead in a city with diversity at its core, we would love to hear from you.

To find out more, contact Ransley Boardman Executive Search: Jo Boardman jo@ransleyboardman.com (07834 030501) or Penny Ransley penny@ransleyboardman.com (07549 233685).

Closing date: Friday 4 December 2026

Technical Interviews: 18 December 2026

Final Interviews: w/c 4 January 2026 and w/c 11 January 2026

Encouraging a diverse workforce
Our city is known and loved for its diversity. Not only is the mixture of people, culture and skills vital to the economic and social development of the city, it's what makes Brighton & Hove such a great place to live, work and visit. We are committed to developing and retaining a workforce that is representative of the diverse communities we serve so we welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds. In order to achieve our aims of proportionate representation, we particularly encourage applicants from a BME or White Other background as well as those who identify as disabled, male or trans.

Find out more about our commitment to being a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone can achieve their potential by reading about our fair and inclusive actions, our anti-racism strategy and the work we are doing to encourage a diverse workforce (brighton-hove.gov.uk).

Why work for us?
As a council, we want to:
• be connected
• be confident
• be innovative and creative
• be diverse and inclusive
• be healthy and psychologically safe
For more information about our values and the benefits of working at the council, visit Why work for us which gives details of our wellbeing support, our benefits including leave and pensions as well as details of our training and development.

Senior recruitment enhanced vetting

All candidates who progress beyond the initial application stage will be subject to a search of their public profile. Final offers are subject to enhanced vetting, and any findings of potential concern will be discussed at the interview stage.

AI advice for candidates
We are interested in hearing about your experience and skills in your own words. While we value people who know how to use AI, we ask that you minimise using it in your application.

We are keen to hear how your experience and skills align to our values and the skills and experience needed to perform well in our roles with clear real examples from you. To support you in this, we have guidance on using the STAR model which can help you ensure you are telling us your whole story. We also provide clarity on the skills we are looking for in our adverts and in the job description/person specification attached to each job advert.

All the applications we receive are read by at least two hiring managers and we do not use AI in this process. Our experience of reading applications is that those that have heavily used AI contain generic paragraphs that are strikingly similar to other applicants’ responses. This makes it extremely difficult to differentiate between applications, and doesn't give us enough evidence of your individual skills. There is a risk that we will therefore not be able to shortlist you. Instead, we recommend you ensure your application stands out by presenting clear examples of your actual skills and experiences in your own words.

Additional information
Your starting salary will be pro rata if the above position is less than 37 hours or term-time only.

Political Restriction

This role is politically restricted. For further information on what this means for employees in post, please click on the document attached.

DBS statement

Please note that this post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, and is subject to a Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) Check.

Flexibility and employee wellbeing

We are a workplace that supports flexibility and employee wellbeing in the way we work whilst providing the best service for our customers. Team and service working arrangements are designed to support both employee work life balance and team collaboration. These would be part of your individual working arrangements alongside any personal preference agreed with your manager in advance of joining. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team and travel to and from your contractual location would be at your own expense.

Recruitment scam alert

Some third-party websites may be using details from our vacancies to advertise roles that are not authorised by us. To protect your personal information, please ensure you verify the job details and application route through the Brighton & Hove City Council jobs board.

We will never ask candidates to pay a fee, purchase a subscription, or make any payment to apply for one of our vacancies.