Job title: Team Manager

Location: Various

Responsible to: Service Manager

Principal working contacts

• Executive and senior management teams
• Care Inspectorate inspectors and strategic inspectors
• Care Inspectorate administration
• Team manager colleagues
• Local authority officers including chief social work officers
• Members of the public and stakeholders in the service area including large provider groups

Job purpose

Lead and manage a multi-professional team to ensure that the registration/inspection/complaints/enforcement work of the Care Inspectorate is carried out across the range of services for children, adults and criminal justice.

To support strategic inspections, national policy work, internal & external development initiatives to ensure that the Care Inspectorate performs effectively and efficiently as an independent, scrutiny and improvement body.

Ensure consistency and quality in all aspects of inspection, regulation and complaints.

Support the service managers, in ensuring that the Care Inspectorate meets its responsibilities, as defined by the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 and other relevant legislation, in delivering its scrutiny and improvement activities and corporate plan by leading internal development work, network building and joint strategy developments at provider, local authority, health board and community levels.

Key responsibilities

Contribution to strategic leadership and direction:

• In conjunction with the service managers, contribute to the strategic direction of the specialist area, building the diverse strands of activity into a cohesive, integrated and productive team, aligned to the achievement of the Care Inspectorate’s aims and objectives, focusing energy and resources on agreed outcomes;
• In conjunction with the service managers, formulate objectives, strategies, action plans and targets for activity within the specialist area and ensure that these are achieved;
• In conjunction with the service managers, contribute to the continuous improvement and quality systems development of the Care Inspectorate;
• Use professional knowledge to highlight issues that could impact on the corporate and strategic management of the Care Inspectorate and the development of consistent practice;
• In conjunction with the service managers, lead in facilitating and delivering business and cultural change within the Care Inspectorate, ensuring all staff embrace the evolving culture;
• In conjunction with the Head of Quality and Improvement, facilitate implementation of improvement and quality assurance activities internally and externally;
• Support the Care Inspectorate’s contribution to national policy initiatives and developments;
• Contribute to the joint strategic inspection process including it’sits evaluation and the implementation of learning;
• As part of the management team develop and deliver training to staff and external stakeholders including dissemination of best practice;
• Lead practice development strategies and events for providers and the relevant sector.

Operational management:

• Manage and be accountable for the registration/inspection/complaints/enforcement work of the team, including making visits to resolve outstanding issues;
• Ensure codes of practice and operational standards are met in respect of the team’s service responsibility;
• Support and engage in the planning of work to meet the requirements of the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, other relevant legislation, Codes of Practice and operational standards;
• Planning and managing the capacity of the team effectively and efficiently, making best use of their skills and experience to achieve targets and objectives;
• Allocate, monitor and review workloads and manage effectively the performance of employees to ensure the team’s targets and quality assurance standards are met;
• Support the service managers, in the budgeting process and contribute to revenue generation in line with best practice;
• Monitor the budgets to ensure cost effective expenditure within the team;
• Produce an annual report on the work and standards of provision within the team;
• Use professional knowledge and judgment to make decisions to resolve issues and conflict;
• Investigate complaints against the Care Inspectorate and review complaints investigated by the Care Inspectorate;
• Deputise for the service managers, when required and undertake such other duties as may be required by the service managers;
• Gather and analyse information, including statistical data, from a wide range of sources to plan and support a wide range of scrutiny and improvement activities undertaken by the Care Inspectorate or in cooperation with partner scrutiny bodies;
• Research evidence based, balance and sound judgement about the quality, effectiveness and impact of services provided within the range of services for children, adults and criminal justice social work as required;
• Support improvement in outcome focused, evidence based joint self-evaluation in local authorities and community planning partnerships;
• Develop, publish and report good practice guides, quality frameworks and other publications as required which support improvement and innovation and share good practice;
• Contribute to developing innovative approaches to inspection delivery and support continuous improvement and quality systems development.

People management:

• Ensure the regulatory and scrutiny functions are carried out as specified in the scheme of delegation;
• Lead, manage and provide professional advice to a multi-professional team, ensuring that their work is carried out in an effective and consistent manner and meets the targets and requirements of the Care Inspectorate;
• Support, develop and coach team members through regular one-to-one supervision, performance development reviews and personal development plans, to ensure the effective engagement of all staff and to build continuous improvement in service delivery;
• Promote consistent, high-quality practice amongst team members, and manage the performance and monitor standards and consistency of practice of all team members;
• Promote the health, safety and welfare of employees, being responsible for the health and safety policies, procedures and practice for both employees and premises, in compliance with Care Inspectorate and legislative requirements;
• Contribute to targeted recruitment, including assessment centres, and development of all professional employees, and the implementation of HR policies, across the service, ensuring that Care Inspectorate objectives are translated into meaningful and realistic personal objectives for staff;
• Promote diversity and equality of opportunity, ensuring that these principles are upheld across all areas of service delivery;
• Provide advice, guidance and support to senior managers in the Care Inspectorate and externally to Scottish Government colleagues and partner scrutiny bodies to inform policy development.

Relationship management:

• Develop an effective working relationship with all principal working contacts and administration and specialist professional colleagues to ensure smooth cross-service working;
• Develop and maintain productive and effective working relationships through the contact manager role with a range of appropriate external stakeholders and relevant key policy contacts within national bodies, Scottish Government, local authorities and health boards, service providers, together with relevant, designated regulatory and statutory agencies with responsibilities for service delivery and commissioning;
• Support the deployment, development and work of the lay assessors and monitor the effectiveness of their overall contribution to the delivery of the Care Inspectorate’s scrutiny and improvement functions;
• Implement mechanisms to consult and include all relevant stakeholders concerned in the delivery and regulation of care;
• Support the development of, and promote, the identity, culture, values and Codes of Practice of the Care Inspectorate;
• Promote the principles of partnership working throughout the organisation and in all working practices;
• Contribute to the work of the national inspection planning team in the development and delivery of the Care Inspectorate’s inspection plans by ensuring that inspection planning effectively takes into account local and national characteristics whilst ensuring that inspection targets are met;
• Represent the Care Inspectorate as required on a wide range of internal and external groups and at external conferences and events;
• Contribute to the continuous development of the Care Inspectorate and manage change effectively and creatively using adaptive leadership skills;
• At all interfaces be proactive in raising public awareness of the work of the Care Inspectorate in a positive manner, demonstrating a commitment to the Care Inspectorate’s aims, vision and values and to the overall objective of improving care in Scotland;
• Lead the involving people strategy at local level and lead community engagement strategies with advocacy, service user and other interest groups;
• Share appropriate information with Care Inspectorate colleagues and partner scrutiny bodies to ensure that scrutiny and improvement activities are risk-based, targeted and proportionate;
• Represent the Care Inspectorate on the Local Authority Networks (LANs) as part of the Shared Risk Assessment (SRA) process and act as the Care Inspectorate link to particular local authorities/community planning partnerships.

Other duties

This job requires some travel and may involve some overnight stays and unsocial hours.

This job description is a broad picture of the post at the date of preparation. It is not an exhaustive list of all possible duties, and it is recognised that jobs change and evolve over time. Consequently, the post holder will be required to carry out any other duties to the equivalent level that are necessary to fulfil the purpose of the job, and to respond positively to changing business needs.

Role: Team Managers – Adults (x2)

Location: Any Care Inspectorate office across mainland Scotland

Salary: £56,076 – £61,917

Hours: 2 x full time – 35 hours per week

Contract: Permanent

About us

We are the national regulator and scrutiny body responsible for providing assurance and protection for people who experience care services, their families, carers and the wider public, as well as supporting delivery partners to improve the quality of care for people in Scotland. Our vision is that people across Scotland experience high quality care that meets their needs, rights and choices.

We are a scrutiny body that supports improvement. We inspect individual care services and we also work with other scrutiny bodies to inspect the social care and social work services people are experiencing in their local areas.

Our desire is to achieve an effective and balanced way of working, that enables us to meet organisational needs and achieve a work-life balance that promotes wellbeing and collaboration opportunities. Our hybrid working policy gives you the flexibility to mix working from home with attendance at your base office and other work locations, spending no more than 60% of your working time working from home, measured over a 4-week period.

Starting salary

Please bear in mind that new entrants start on the grade minimum for the role. However, we have a generous benefits package which you will find on our website.

About the role

We are looking for team managers within our adults regulated inspection teams. The location of the posts is to be confirmed but will be based in teams across Scotland. The successful candidates can be based in any of our Care Inspectorate offices but must be willing to travel to meet inspectors and providers in the areas identified.

This is an exciting opportunity for you to try something different. If you are improvement focussed, confident, and have a passion to make a real difference which supports the innovative delivery of care then these roles may be for you.

Our team managers support their team of inspectors to manage their workload, consider risk factors and maximise performance. In the inspection teams the work includes delivering a programme of inspections using risk and intelligence to prioritise the use of the team's inspector resource. Team managers work closely with our registration and complaints teams to ensure effective scrutiny of care services. As the key element of the role is service development and delivery, there is interface and collaboration with colleagues within and across the organisation, providers, and relevant stakeholders.

As the team manager you will be the relationship manager for adults with the health and social care partnerships in the areas to be identified. You will support local oversight, share intelligence, and enable your team to support improvement for people experiencing care living in those areas. Team managers are expected to take part in and keep up to date with national initiatives and development to support the work of the Care Inspectorate. Team managers also provide professional development to the team of inspectors that they manage. 

About you

You will be educated to degree level or equivalent and hold an appropriate professional qualification and be committed to your own continuous professional development.

You should have significant experience of operational scrutiny activity and professional regulatory practice within adults. You will have experience implementing improvements and managing change.

You will need to be able to provide leadership and direction to a diverse team of professional staff. You will need to demonstrate a significant knowledge of working with inspection and regulation of care as well as a commitment to the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 and the principles of better regulation.

To apply

You’ll find more information in the job profile and person specification. 

If you require any further information or for an informal chat, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

If you believe that you are a suitable candidate for this post, please complete the online application form by no later than 08:00 on Monday 8 September 2025.

Interviews will be held on week commencing 6 October 2025.

Registration information and process

You will support the assurance and improvement directorate to ensure that the Care Inspectorate meets its responsibilities as defined by the Public Services Reform Act 2010 and other relevant legislation.

The successful applicant must be registered with a professional body (this can be NMC, GTCS, NMC, HCPC, SSSC).

For SSSC registration, there is a specific registration category for Care Inspectorate Authorised Officers (AO). There will be two levels of AO registration (Primary AO and Secondary AO), and identification of types of work undertaken (Social Care and Children & Young People).

On appointment as a team manager you will be required to register with SSSC as a secondary AO under both types of work (Social Care and Children & Young People) or be registered with another appropriate registration body (NMC, GTCS, HCPC).

We would expect non-SSSC staff to hold or gain the appropriate AO qualification (in this case EFQM would be the minimum qualification).

Employees will be expected to maintain registration with the same professional body throughout their employment in the Care Inspectorate. This includes employees working in authorised officer roles who are recruited to the Care Inspectorate based on their registration with the NMC, GTCS, HCPC or other recognised professional body. It is a contractual requirement to maintain registration with the same professional body and employees should not transfer their registration to the SSSC from another recognised professional body, including the NMC, GTCS or HCPC.