Team Manager

Job Description

Organisation: London Borough of Waltham Forest

Salary: PO8 - PO9£59,511 - £67,575

Retention Bonus/ Market Supplement: £2,000

Contract Type: Full-time, Permanent

Working hours per week: 36

Application Deadline: 31/08/2026

Proposed Interview Date(s): 03/09/2026

Reference:  2288

About Us:

Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, the London Borough of Waltham Forest is a fantastic and exciting place to work.

We are a highly ambitious borough. Driven by culture and the innate creativity of our residents, we have developed new and innovative ways to build our communities. Our Council is relentlessly resident-focused, insight-led, digitally driven and commercially minded; a Council focused on meeting the needs of our existing and future residents.

London Borough of Waltham Forest is one of the Mayor of London’s Good Work Standard employers. This accreditation is a proof of our commitment to creating a healthy, fair and inclusive workplace. This includes fair pay and conditions, workplace well-being, skills and progression and diversity and recruitment.

About the role:

To Manager will support with the development implementation of team and service-level plans and strategies, policies, risk management, practice standards and quality assurance and other practice improvement measures related to Permanence and Post Order Service.

To coach, manage and support social workers in SGO, Connected Persons and Post Order Support team to ensure that the range of assessments (Viability/Schedule 4/Connected Person/SGO) are completed within court timelines, predicated on sound judgement and decision making, safeguard children and young people and achieve the best possible outcomes.

To exercise effective case management/oversight of supervision of Regulation 24 carers and unregulated placements and be responsible for pre and post SGO support services that includes assessment of need, provision of services and Adoption Support Fund (ASF) applications.

To attend the relevant meetings (Legal Planning Meetings/Permanency Planning etc) and Permanency Supervision Groups and work closely with partner Agencies (Grand Parent Plus & PAC UK etc) in the provision of SGO related services for SGO carers pre and post order. To work closely with the Head of Service in reviewing service level agreements for partner agencies.

We are a Home Office–licensed sponsor; however, for this specific role we are not able to provide Skilled Worker visa sponsorship. To be considered, you must already hold a form of UK work authorisation that does not require sponsorship.

>> Click here to download the Role Profile <<

Key Responsibilities:

• Manage a Team of 6 social workers in SGO & Connected Persons Team & Post Order Support Team)
• Able to appraise information and make sound judgements and decisions to safeguard children and promote good outcomes.
• Budget monitoring and effective allocation of resources, to include attendance at Finance Panels.
• Management oversight and review of all Alternative carers financial support packages (also includes adopters)

• Monitoring and QA of Kinship carers paperwork and SGO reports and undertake case file audits.

• Monitoring and QA of all ASF applications

• Drive the new Kinship Strategy Reforms and Kinship Local Offer in Waltham Forest.

Knowledge & Skills

• Sound knowledge of the Child Care legislations and Care Planning regulations

• Sound knowledge of the Fostering regulations, National Minimum Standards and conversant with connected person carers & Reg 25 extension and advice

• Good knowledge base and practice experience of permanency planning for children. Having Adoption experience is also desirable.

• Good interpersonal skills and Good assessment skills.

• Knowledge and practice experience about Adoption is desirable

• Able to work well under pressure and able to priorities work inflow and outflow to ensure timelines are met

• Performance driven, promoting staff ownership and accountability of work allocated

Qualifications and Requirements:

Qualified Social Work Qualification

Three years post qualifying social work skills and experience

Registered with Social Work England (SWE)

Good knowledge of ICT skills, Microsoft Office, Mosaic systems

Terms and conditions:

The below terms and conditions apply to this role:

• Satisfactory employment references and CIFAS identity checks;

• Satisfactory declaration of interest;

• This role is subject to safer recruitment practices as it involves work with children and/ or vulnerable adults;

• Satisfactory Enhanced DBS/Barred Service check

• Continued professional body registration;

• As a public authority, we must ensure that members of staff in public-facing roles are able to speak fluent English. This means that they must have a command of spoken English, with confidence and accuracy, sufficient for the effective performance of their role. This requirement does not refer to any particular English language qualifications, regional or international accents, dialects, speech impediments or the tone of conversations. It does not require staff to speak only in English.

How to Apply:

Interested candidates are invited to submit their applications online by pressing the ‘Apply’ button below. This includes a supporting statement that outlines to us how your skills and experience make you a good candidate for this vacancy.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both, service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives: - Promoting equality of opportunity - Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage - Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels. - Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all. Respecting Diversity is a core Council value.

To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy.

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below or feel free to discuss this during your interview.

For more information on the benefits of working for the Council, please visit https://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/jobs-and-training/find-jobs-and-other-opportunities/working-us.

Contact Information:

If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact Roberta Onyekwelu at Roberta.Onyekwelu@walthamforest.gov.uk or 07854 913 787

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Recruitment Team via email at recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk.

The Council’s preference is for online application. However, if you have a disability and are unable to complete an online application, please email recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk so we can arrange an alternative application method.

Click here for further information on the Human Resources recruitment privacy notice.

Fraud Awareness Notice
The London Borough of Waltham Forest only advertises vacancies via our official website and approved recruitment platforms (e.g. Jobsgopublic).

We will never ask for payment or request sensitive personal or financial information as part of our recruitment process.

If you are contacted by a third party claiming to represent the Council, please verify the vacancy via our official careers website before sharing any information.

If you have concerns about a job advert or communication, please report it to:
fraud@walthamforest.gov.uk