Casual Sessional Panel Member

Nottingham City Council; East Midlands; Hybrid; GBP 24,000 - 26,000; Part time

Job summary

A local government authority in England seeks talented individuals to join as panel members for fostering assessments. The role entails reviewing cases and ensuring quality assurance in child placement processes. Ideal candidates will possess a social work qualification and experience related to fostering. This position offers competitive benefits including annual leave and a defined benefit pension scheme.

Benefits

26 days annual leave (increasing to 33 days)

Access to a defined benefit pension scheme

Health and wellbeing benefits

Discounted membership at local facilities

Qualifications

• Experience in fostering or adoptive family placements.
• DBS enhanced check for a regulated activity is required.

Responsibilities

• Join the Central List of panel members and commit to the panel rota.
• Make recommendations on cases presented to the panel.
• Ensure independent scrutiny over cases presented.

Skills

Good listening and communication skills

Ability to read and analyze complex information

Ability to work cooperatively in a team

Education

Social Work qualification

Job description

Overview

Contract Type: Casual

Working Hours: Casual

Worker Type: Mobile

Salary: £24,413 - £25,185 per annum (pro-rata for part-time) £150 per Panel

Location: Home-based / Loxley House, Nottingham, NG2 3NG

We’ve got an exciting opportunity available for talented individuals to join our workforce. Working for Nottingham City Council offers competitive pay, generous leave entitlement and access to a pension scheme, with a culture focused on inclusion and development.

You can read more about the different benefits offered to colleagues working for Nottingham City Council here.

About The Role

This role involves joining the Central List of panel members and committing to the panel rota throughout the year. The fostering panel makes recommendations on cases presented to panel, including mainstream foster carer approvals, kinship care assessments, foster carer reviews and reviews following concerns. The panel has an important function in the quality assurance of reports and ensuring independent scrutiny over cases presented and reporting back to the agency.

About You

The ideal candidate will have:

Experience And Qualifications

• Experience, either professionally or personally or both, of the placement of children in fostering or adoptive families or of children being cared for away from their birth family.
• A Social Work qualification will be necessary for certain Panel Members.

Knowledge

• An appreciation of the effect of separation and loss on children.
• Awareness of the richness of different kinds of families and their potential for meeting children’s needs.
• Some understanding of the purpose and function of the Panel and of the agency which the Panel is serving, or a willingness to learn.

Abilities

• Good listening and communication skills.
• The ability to read, process and analyse large amounts of complex and sometimes distressing information.
• The ability to make an assessment and to form a view, based on the written and verbal information presented to Panel, and the confidence to articulate this at Panel.
• The ability to use personal and/or professional knowledge and experience to contribute to discussions and decision-making in a balanced and informed manner.
• The ability to work co-operatively as part of a multi-disciplinary team.

Attitudes

• A commitment to keeping children within their own family or community where this is possible and to maintaining contact between children living in foster families and their birth families where this appears to be in the child’s best interests.
• A commitment to fostering as a way of meeting a child’s needs where this appears to be in the child’s best interests.
• A commitment to safeguarding and promoting children’s welfare in mainstream and kinship foster care.
• A valuing of diversity in relation to issues of ethnicity, religion, gender, disability and sexuality.
• An understanding of, and a commitment to, the need for confidentiality.
• A willingness to increase knowledge and understanding of issues through reading, discussion and training.
• A willingness to contribute constructively to the annual review of their Panel membership and, as required, to that of other Panel Members and the Chair.

A DBS enhanced check for a regulated activity is required for this post.

You can find the job description for this post here.

At Nottingham City Council, we believe that work is what you do, not where you do it. We offer different working arrangements, depending on the role, including hybrid working. Further information on Worker Types and what these mean in terms of how and where you work can be found on the additional information for applicants page.

For informal enquiries, please contact Donna Cole, Panel Advisor, by email at [e-mail]

Closing Date: 13th October 2025. Please note there may be occasions where we close the advert before the closing date and we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.

Interviews will be held: Week commencing 27th October 2025.

If you have any technical issues when completing your application, please contact our Employee Service Centre: https://emss.org.uk/support

By applying to this job, you agree to our Terms & Conditions.

About Us

Thank you for your interest in working for Nottingham City Council. We offer a wide range of roles across services and provide a supportive environment for career development, with benefits including:

• 26 days annual leave (rising to 33 days after 5 years’ service) + bank holidays, with the option to buy additional leave
• Access to a generous defined benefit pension scheme
• Smart Working – supporting work-life balance
• Health and wellbeing benefits including access to our Employee Assistance Programme
• Discounted membership at selected local facilities and services

Nottingham City Council is committed to recruiting a diverse workforce and welcomes applications from all backgrounds and abilities. We encourage flexible working arrangements where possible and are keen to discuss options during the selection process.