Main Responsibility

The Role 

As Interim Team Manager, you will provide operational leadership, professional supervision and safeguarding oversight to support the delivery of high-quality out-of-hours services.

Key responsibilities include:

• Providing management oversight of complex safeguarding and risk-management decisions.
• Supporting and supervising social work staff within the EDS team.
• Ensuring statutory duties and service standards are maintained.Undertaking quality assurance and performance monitoring activity.
• Supporting effective multi-agency working and partnership engagement.
• Assisting with workforce planning and operational management.
• Supporting service improvement and system transformation activities.
• Contributing to the implementation of Liquidlogic and associated changes to practice and recording systems.

You'll be :

• representing the Emergency Duty Service providing a service outside of normal office hours.
• carrying out tasks related to the following and dependent on relevant qualification and experience for the task:
  • 
    
    • To secure the provision of a range of services in urgent situations, for the care of children for whom the local authority has a statutory duty and responsibility under the provisions of the Children Act 1989. 
    • To secure provision of a range of services in crisis situations, for adult service users within the framework of the Care Act 2014. 
    • To ensure the safety and wellbeing of service users who require urgent assessment subject to the provisions of the Mental Health Act 1983. 
    • To facilitate the delivery of services to children, young people and adults in police custody, as outlined in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1983 (PACE). 
    • To ensure that health and safety matters are considered when undertaking a piece of work.
  • Interviews will be held during the week starting 5th October 2026 

The Ideal Candidate

You will be:

• A qualified Social Worker registered with Social Work England.
• An experienced Team Manager, Assistant Team Manager or senior practitioner with strong safeguarding knowledge.
• Approval as an Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP) would be desirable, given the service's responsibility for responding to urgent Mental Health Act requests outside normal working hours.
• Knowledgeable across Children's Services, Adult Social Care and Mental Health legislation and practice.
• Confident managing risk and supporting decision-making in complex situations.
• Skilled in staff supervision, quality assurance and performance management.
• An effective communicator with strong partnership-working skills.
• Able to work flexibly and provide leadership within a busy out-of-hours environment.           

Minimum Criteria

Working in the Emergency Duty Service requires teamwork, good organisational skills and a good level of competency using IT systems. You’ll also need:

• minimum 2 years post-qualifying experience in social work
• Good communication skills because you’ll interact with lots of people across the organisation and externally through phone, in person and email
• Good organisation skills and attention to detail, as you’ll be keeping data updated and you’ll be working to deadlines
• A flexible approach to work as sometimes things can change, and so you’ll need to be able to prioritise work and sometimes change tasks quickly
• A passion to always give the best service
• Ability to cover 5pm-8am Monday-Friday and provide 24 hrs cover on a stand by basis basis on Saturdays, Sundays and also bank holidays

For more information or to express interest, please contact: Jane Byrne – Team Manager: jane.byrne@staffordshire.gov.uk or Matthew Pepper – Team Manager: matthew.pepper@staffordshire.gov.uk

Our Recruitment Process: We anonymise applications during shortlisting to ensure only relevant information is considered. Please complete your application fully, especially the supporting statement, to highlight what you’ll bring to the role. 

For information, please note that there is currently an ongoing review within Children and Families to realign individual teams and the wider team’s ways of working. As a result, this role may be affected by the review. For further information, please speak to the hiring manager.

Please note: The minimum criteria in the ideal candidate section detailed above will be used if you are applying under one of our Interview Guarantee Schemes detailed below.

About Staffordshire County Council

We are no ordinary county council:

Our Values:

The core of who we are as an organisation. Just like we all have personal values that shape our thoughts and behaviour, organisational values drive how we think and act collectively.

Our values were created and shaped by colleague feedback and national best practice and they sit at the heart of People Strategy:

We have a real sense of community spirit that brings our people together. This feeling of belonging means we are all connected to what we do and take pride in the difference we make every day for Staffordshire people. We are ambitious and our sights are set firmly on a better future.

We look forward and race ahead - that goes for your career too. 

Our benefits:

We recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive working environment where employees can achieve their full potential and achieve a healthy work-life balance. 

In addition to your salary, as a member of staff, you will have access to Our rewards and benefits - Careers at Staffordshire

Our recruitment process:

As an Authority we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people/vulnerable adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Staffordshire County Council is an equal opportunities organisation and Disability Confident employer. We encourage applications from all background and communities

As part of our commitment as a Disability Confident employer, a Gold Award Armed Forces employer and our commitment to supporting care leavers - we offer a guaranteed interview as long as your application meets the minimum criteria for the post. 

As you’ll know safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our children and young people/vulnerable adults is important to us and that’s why this position is subject to a criminal record check from the Disclosure and Barring Service. If applicable you should disclose details of unspent and unfiltered spent reprimands, formal warnings, cautions and convictions in your application form.