Job title: Service Manager - Early Learning and Childcare
Salary: £35,730 (£71,460 FTE)
Hours: Part-time (10 days per 4-week period)
Location: Flexible (Any Care Inspectorate office)
Contract: Temporary for 18 months (with the possibility of further extension)
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. We are moving towards an expectation that all staff will work collaboratively, within and across teams, in person, for approximately 40% of their working week.
About the role
Due to flexible retirement, we are looking to recruit a temporary part-time Service Manager to join our Early Learning & Childcare Team.
This role will oversee the work of Team Managers, who manage Inspectors to carry out scrutiny activity of early learning and childcare services including shared inspections with Education Scotland. Team Managers and Inspectors also play an important role in supporting quality assuring care services and providing professional advice to assist in developing the quality of service delivery. Acting as relationship managers, they provide support and challenge to local authorities, and providers of multiple services with the aim of supporting continuous improvement.
The successful candidate will manage projects and support the work of the directorate including overseeing the quality assurance of our scrutiny work. The role also involves liaison with external stakeholders, promoting the work of the organisation and contributing to national initiatives.
The role holder will be expected to support the Scrutiny and Assurance Directorate to ensure that the Care Inspectorate meets its responsibilities as defined by the Public Services Reform Act 2010 and other relevant legislation.
This senior role works with other leaders and colleagues to support significant cultural change, consolidate excellence in the Care Inspectorate’s activities and continue to invest in our competent, confident workforce in a way that puts collaboration at the core of our work.
About you
You will have significant experience in services for early learning and childcare and experience of scrutiny and assurance activity. You must be able to work well with colleagues to achieve shared aims, support innovation and make best use of resources. You will demonstrate the ability to provide leadership and direction to a diverse, multi-disciplinary team of professional staff and be highly effective in working creatively and collaboratively across organisational and professional boundaries.
Adept at challenging traditional thinking in a positive and constructive way, you will be an articulate and positive communicator, both verbally and in written form, with the ability to engage, influence and lead the development of a wide range of key stakeholder relationships, both internally and externally.
You will also be politically astute and demonstrate a broad knowledge of trends and relevant issues within health, social care, and education.
- You will be educated to SCQF level 9 (e.g. degree, graduate diploma/certificate, etc.)
- You will have a secondary Authorised Officer qualification - either PDA (Professional Development Award), RoCA (Regulation of Care Award), EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management) or PSIF (Public Sector Improvement Framework)
We are looking for someone who has:
- Proven track record of effective management and leadership of staff in the area of health, social care, or education.
- Demonstrable experience of strategic planning and delivery of services and supporting and embedding sustainable business and transformational change.
- Extensive experience of collaborative and values-based leadership including working with partners.
Next steps
You’ll find more information in the job profile and person specification.
If you would like more information or an informal chat about the role please contact the recruitment team in the first instance - please include a contact telephone number and times that would be best to reach you in your email.
If you believe that you are a suitable candidate for this post, please download and complete an application form and submit it by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by 08:00 on Monday 23 September 2024.
It is anticipated that interviews will be held in the week commencing Monday 7 October.
Professional Registration Information
As a Service Manager you will support the Scrutiny & Assurance and Strategy & Improvement directorates 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 or the 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).
If you are a SSSC registrant, on appointment as a Service 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).