Principal Service Lead - Safeguarding and Quality Assurance

Job Introduction

Principal Service Lead – Safeguarding & Quality Assurance (PSW)

Salary: £76,597 - £81,370 (pay award pending)
Location: Dudley, West Midlands – Hybrid
Contract: Permanent, Full Time

Are you an experienced and values-driven leader with a passion for safeguarding, professional standards and continuous improvement?

Dudley are embarking on an exciting journey of improvement. We have strengthened capacity at Associate Director level with four permanent roles AD Education and Inclusion, AD Quality, Performance and Improvement, AD Family Help and Safeguarding and AD Corporate Parenting. We are now recruiting to our Principal Service Lead roles to further strengthen our leadership capacity.

Dudley Council is seeking an exceptional Principal Service Lead – Safeguarding & Quality Assurance to join our Children’s Services Leadership Team. This is a pivotal leadership role responsible for driving practice excellence, strengthening safeguarding arrangements and ensuring high-quality services that improve outcomes for children, young people and families.

In this strategic leadership role, you will:

• Lead safeguarding, quality assurance and practice improvement, acting as the Strategic Principal Social Worker and driving excellence in social work practice across Children’s Services.
• Provide leadership across key safeguarding, quality and workforce development functions, ensuring strong governance, professional standards and continuous improvement.
• Drive learning, inspection readiness and performance improvement, working with partners and stakeholders to improve outcomes for children, young people and families.

Who we're looking for:

We are seeking a visible, credible and ambitious leader with significant experience in Children’s Social Care and a proven track record of delivering service improvement and safeguarding excellence.

You will bring:

Join us and help drive outstanding safeguarding practice, continuous improvement and better outcomes for children and young people across Dudley.

For an informal discussion please contact Kirsty Hart on Kirsty.hart@dudley.gov.uk who make necessary arrangements for a conversation with our Associate Directors

Applications close: 31/8/26

Please submit your CV and supporting statement with your application. Your supporting statement should be arial 12 and no more than 4 pages.

The recruitment process consists of a young person’s panel and final interview. Interview dates will be confirmed following shortlisting. Please indicate any periods you are unavailable.

Please do visit Dudley Councils Children and Young People recruitment site for more information:-https://www.childrenfirstdudley.org.uk/Jobs

Workplace Attendance: Working in the office 3+ days a week (pro-rata) or Onsite full time.

So that we can demonstrate Dudley’s commitment to diversity and inclusion and to improve bias in the recruitment process that could create barriers for candidates. Your personal data will be anonymised when you apply, to ensure that you comply with our anonymisation process, please ensure you have removed your name and date of birth from any attachments prior to uploading them to your application.

Online application forms will only be accepted for this vacancy, online facilities for jobs are available at public libraries within the Dudley Borough.

All applicants must be able to provide documentation to prove their right to work in the UK.

Please note: Dudley MBC does not currently offer sponsorship for candidates without the Right to Work in the UK.

If you require support completing an online or paper application form and or interview techniques, please contact Dudley Adult and Community Learning on 01384 818 143 or acl@dudley.gov.uk who can support with Digital Skills and Job Applications.

If you have a disability and require assistance in making an application please contact the HR Resourcing Team via HR.Resourcing@dudley.gov.uk

If you are experiencing a problem whilst applying for a position, please follow the link below to the WM Jobs Help Page in the first instance https://help.wmjobs.co.uk/

If the WM Jobs Help Page does not resolve your issue then please contact the HR Resourcing Team via HR.Resourcing@dudley.gov.uk

Dudley Council will check the information that you have provided against any details already held for accuracy and completeness. The Council will check, share and cross match your information both internally within the council and with external organisations to protect public funds and prevent or detect crime, only where the law allows us to do so.

The Council’s full Privacy and Disclaimer Statement can be accessed on the website at https://www.dudley.gov.uk/privacy-disclaimer-statement/

N.B. We reserve the right to close this vacancy prior to the advertised date should we receive a large number of applications

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