Justice Service Manager

Red 5 People; Chelmsford; On-site; GBP 42,000 - 54,000; Full time

Job summary

Red 5 People seeks an experienced people manager to lead a team delivering rehabilitation and resettlement services across prison and probation settings in Essex. The role involves multi-site leadership, driving performance, and ensuring high quality service delivery.

You will support and develop your team, working with partners and stakeholders to meet contractual standards while maintaining a positive, accountable culture. Regular travel between sites is required.

Qualifications

• Experience leading teams delivering services in criminal justice, probation or social-impact settings.
• Proven ability to coach, motivate and develop staff to hit targets and standards.
• Strong organisation and communication skills with ability to work across multiple sites and partners.

Responsibilities

• Lead, support and develop a team across multiple locations.
• Manage performance against targets, quality standards and contracts.
• Use data to identify trends, address issues and drive improvements.
• Build strong relationships with prison, probation and other partners.
• Ensure staff have direction and support to deliver excellent service.
• Create a positive, accountable, high-performing team culture.

Skills

People management

Team leadership

Coaching

Organization

Communication

Stakeholder management

Travel flexibility

Job description

We are looking for an experienced people manager to lead a team delivering rehabilitation and resettlement services across prison and probation settings throughout Essex.

This is a varied, multi-site leadership role where you'll be responsible for supporting and developing your team, driving performance and ensuring services are delivered to a consistently high standard.

You'll be joining a well-established charity that has been recognised as a great employer through Best Companies and Investors in People, with excellent opportunities for career development. We've recruited extensively for the organisation and have seen a number of our previous placements progress their careers internally.

The role

• Leading, supporting and developing a team working across multiple locations.
• Managing performance against targets, quality standards and contractual requirements.
• Using data to identify trends, address performance issues and drive improvement.
• Building strong relationships with prison, probation and other key partners.
• Ensuring staff have the support and direction they need to deliver an excellent service.
• Creating a positive, accountable and high-performing team culture.

About you

• Strong people management and team leadership experience.
• Experience managing performance and delivering against targets or KPIs.
• The ability to coach, motivate and develop staff.
• Strong organisation and communication skills.
• Confidence working with external stakeholders and partners.
• The flexibility to travel regularly between sites.

You might already work within criminal justice, probation, employability, rehabilitation or another social-impact service, although this isn't essential. We're equally interested in strong managers from other performance-led environments.

Location & travel

This is not a home-based role. You'll be based from the probation site closest to where you live, while regularly travelling to other probation and prison locations to support your team. Business mileage for travel beyond your designated base location is paid.

The team operates across Essex, including Basildon, Southend-on-Sea, Chelmsford, Colchester and Harlow, as well as prison settings including HMP/YOI Chelmsford and HMP Hollesley Bay.

Travel across the service area is therefore an important part of the role.