Local Authority Designated Officer

Job Title: Local Authority Designated Officer
Starting Salary: £48,226 progressing to £53,460 per annum (pro rata for part time)
Hours: 37.0
Location: Countywide
Contract Type: Permanent
Directorate: Childrens Services

About the team

The LADO service is the Local Authority’s statutory function for managing and overseeing allegations and concerns against professionals who work with children. The LADOs have a key role to provide specialist advice, guidance and training to organisations who employ staff in the children’s workforce and provide services to children in Hertfordshire. The service has a statutory responsibility to ensure the necessary investigations are carried out where necessary considering multifaceted perspectives of employment, child protection, criminal and regulation ensuring staff are treated fairly and supported to improve practice where possible but also to ensure those responsible for managing staff do so effectively making sure risks to children from the workforce are mitigated and reported to the necessary bodies such as DBS.

The team members hold a significant amount of safeguarding experience, the service is fast paced with staff undertaking fast paced and complex child protection activities on a duty basis working with a vast range of statutory agencies, partner agencies and regulatory bodies. The role regulatory involves critically challenging and escalating concerns at a senior level.

About the role

• To manage and oversee the allegations management process in line with current local and national safeguarding procedures and guidance issued by the Department for Education and Hertfordshire Safeguarding Children Partnership, including the identification of those at risk or in need of protection, determining with the employer the most suitable method of intervention.
• To manage and oversee individual cases from all partner agencies of the Hertfordshire Safeguarding Children’s Partnership employing or supplying staff to the children’s workforce.
• To chair LADO meetings that look at an allegation against an individual working in the children’s workforce and agreeing decisions and actions, ensuring the accuracy of notes, their timely distribution and accurate recording on the agreed systems.
• To disseminate the outcomes of processes as appropriate and work with employers to ensure that referrals of cases to the Disclosure and Barring Service and the relevant professional regulatory body are made appropriately.
• To identify cases requiring additional media and communications protocols and bring those to the attention of senior managers.
• Manage the recording systems that provide clear audit trails about decision making, planning and recommendations in all processes relating to the management of allegations against individuals working in the children’s workforce.
• To ensure an effective communication strategy with all partner agencies in respect of process developments and updates, and establish links with other LADOs (regionally and nationally) to ensure sharing of best practice for continuous improvement and effective cross border working.
• To implement performance management systems, providing timely and accurate performance data and inform reports to Hertfordshire Safeguarding Children Partnership and ensure that learning from cases is fed back into improving practice so that safer cultures are embedded and children are better protected.
• To manage the submission of data relating to allegations against staff and volunteers to the Department for Education when required.
• To liaise as necessary with representatives of other Local Authorities in respect of position of trust abuse issues that span council boundaries.
• To assist and support agencies and employers in their practice by providing advice, guidance, and training in relation to managing allegations made against people who come onto contact with children in their working environment.

To represent the Local Authority as LADO in relation to service development across the region, as required.

About you

Essential:

• Social work qualification and active registration with Social Work England. For an applicant to be considered without a social work qualification, they will need to demonstrate extensive experience of holding LADO roles.
• Extensive knowledge and experience in safeguarding, in particular child protection
• Knowledge of current research and reports concerning child protection issues
• Ability to deal with complex practice and legal issues relating to allegations management
• Knowledge of key agencies and partners who need to be involved in the investigation of allegations
• Detailed knowledge of relevant regulations and guidance on child protection, safer recruitment and allegations management within the legal frameworks outlined in The Children Act, Working Together to Safeguarding Children, Sexual Offences Act, Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act and local child protection procedures
• Knowledge of regulations in relation to employment issues
• Experience and understanding of disciplinary procedures in various settings
• Extensive experience of child protection systems and advising on the handling and management of child protection cases
• Competent skills in quality assurance and escalations, including those to senior managers, directors and at times professional or regulatory bodies.
• Ability to meet statutory deadlines, manage own workload and ensure timely recording of outcomes
• Ability to critically analyse individual agency policies and procedures relevant to an allegation, and challenge or advise actions to improve and implement safer cultures and practice
• Ability to lead and chair complex and multifaceted child protection investigations
• Understanding of risk assessments in the context of keeping children and the workforce safe
• Developing positive working relationships with internal partners (for example HR) and with organisations who are employers of the children’s workforce
• Able to consistently meet the set practice standards for the LADO
• Producing reports from the outcomes of allegations
• Able to proficiently use the local client recording system

Desirable:

• Have had experience at team manager level with at least 5 years post qualifying experience in child protection
• Experience in delivering training in multi-disciplinary settings on child protection issues and allegations management
• Ability to implement necessary change as a result of new guidance or findings from audits and inspections
• Writing policies and procedures
• Supporting support agencies and partners to improve and develop their systems

We welcome applications from candidates who currently reside in the UK with established proof of right to work documentation. We are not able to offer sponsorship at this time for this role.

This job role is within the Health and Social Care Services, level HSC12 job profile. Please locate this via:

Job profiles - Health and social care

To hear more about this opportunity please contact Kassiane Papageorgiou (kassiane.papageorgiou@hertfordshire.gov.uk)

Benefits of working for us

How to apply

As part of your application, please upload your most recent CV. Ensure your CV is up to date with your employment history (including any employment gaps), and including any training/qualifications. We encourage you to include examples of where you have demonstrated the requirements/criteria in the advert / job profile to allow the panel to fully recognise your skills and abilities. You will have the opportunity to include a short covering paragraph within your application to give us a little more information about your skills, knowledge, and experiences.

Additional information

Disability Confident
We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and guarantee an interview to anyone disclosing a disability whose application meets the minimum criteria for the post.

Safeguarding
This role has been identified as requiring a Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check.

English Fluency
The ability to converse at ease with members of the public and provide advice in accurate spoken English is essential for the post (for those whose language is a signed language the provision of a sign language interpreter who speaks English to the necessary standard of fluency will be required). Further information about the legal requirement can be found here.