Safeguarding, Welfare & Compliance Manager

UK Sport; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 45,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading sports organization in the UK is seeking an experienced professional to oversee safeguarding and integrity functions within Basketball England. The ideal candidate will provide strategic operational oversight, managing a team of specialists and ensuring compliance with statutory obligations. You will engage with stakeholders and lead initiatives to maintain the highest standards of welfare and participant safety. A degree in a relevant field and extensive safeguarding experience are essential for this role, which may require weekend work and travel.

Benefits

Flexible working hours

Commitment to diversity and inclusion

Opportunities for professional development

Qualifications

• Significant experience in safeguarding or integrity roles, including policy development.
• Experience managing complex safeguarding cases.
• Experience leading teams and managing specialists.

Responsibilities

• Ensure national safeguarding standards are embedded in the organisation.
• Provide oversight of Basketball England's compliance policies and procedures.
• Lead the management of safeguarding and disciplinary matters.

Skills

Leadership

Safeguarding expertise

Stakeholder engagement

Policy development

Attention to detail

Education

Degree level qualification or equivalent

Minimum Level 2 qualification in Safeguarding

Tools

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft PowerPoint

Job description

Contract: Permanent
Working Pattern: Minimum 37.5 hours per week. Some travel, out of office hours & weekend work may be required
Location: Nationwide, with occasional travel to Manchester office

Purpose

To provide strategic and operational oversight across Basketball England's Integrity functions of Safeguarding, Discipline and Compliance, ensuring the organisation upholds the highest standards of integrity, welfare and participant safety and meets its statutory and regulatory obligations.

The role will lead a team of specialists, act as Basketball England's Lead Safeguarding Officer, and provide senior oversight of safeguarding and disciplinary matters, ensuring that safeguarding, equality, ESG and health & safety are embedded across the organisation and the sport.

Key Accountabilities

Integrity Team Management

• Provide leadership, direction and support to a team of professionals across Safeguarding and Discipline.
• Set clear priorities, manage capacity and ensure effective delegation between strategic oversight and operational delivery.
• Act as a senior subject-matter expert, providing advice and assurance to EMT, Committees and the Board on integrity-related matters.

Safeguarding & Compliance

• Lead the management, implementation, monitoring and review of Basketball England's compliance policies and procedures, including (but not limited to) safeguarding, equality and the management and resolution of complaints.
• Ensure safeguarding and welfare considerations are embedded across organisational decision-making, programmes and delivery.
• Maintain organisational oversight of compliance with relevant legislation, national guidance and funding requirements.

Lead Safeguarding Officer Responsibilities

• Act as Basketball England's Lead Safeguarding Officer (LSO), ensuring national safeguarding standards are embedded throughout the organisation and the game.
• Lead engagement with the Child Protection in Sport Unit (CPSU) and the Ann Craft Trust and oversee delivery of the Safeguarding Implementation Plan and Adults at Risk Plan.
• Act as a point of escalation for safeguarding and welfare concerns, ensuring concerns are triaged and managed appropriately, proportionately and in a timely manner in accordance with policy and legislation.

Case Management & Statutory Liaison

• Provide leadership and oversight of Basketball England's Case Management Groups, ensuring effective, timely and robust decision-making on complex safeguarding/discipline cases.
• Support and oversee the team in the management of cases through to resolution, ensuring consistency, fairness and confidentiality.
• Ensure appropriate statutory referrals are made (including DBS, police or social care), and represent Basketball England at hearings, appeals and multi-agency meetings where required.

Discipline & Complaints Oversight

• Provide strategic oversight of disciplinary matters within basketball, ensuring processes are fair, transparent and aligned with Basketball England regulations and policies.
• Ensure clear interfaces between safeguarding, discipline and complaints processes, avoiding duplication and managing risk appropriately.
• Support the continuous review and improvement of disciplinary and complaints frameworks.

Policy Development & Governance

• Manage the lifecycle of integrity-related policies, including development, review, implementation and embedding.
• Develop and maintain policies, guidance and templates including (but not limited to): safeguarding, equity, social media, appropriate communication, code of ethics and conduct, complaints, good practice guidance for clubs and volunteers and affiliation and liability documentation.
• Ensure policies are accessible, practical and consistently applied across the organisation and the sport.

Risk Management, ESG, Health & Safety

• Risk assess integrity-related information and make recommendations to mitigate risk across all facets of the organisation.
• Contribute to organisational risk registers, audits and assurance processes.
• Provide oversight for relevant Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) considerations
• Ensure appropriate oversight of Health & Safety compliance, working with operational leads as required.

Reporting, Insight & Continuous Improvement

• Develop and maintain reporting frameworks to provide assurance and insight to EMT, Committees, the Board and funding partners.
• Analyse case trends and themes to inform learning, policy development and organisational improvement.
• Work collaboratively with EDI, People and Programme teams to embed learning and strengthen culture, safety and participant experience.

Relationship Management

Internal Team: Build relationships with Basketball England colleagues to understand all requirements and expectations across the business, to continuously improve the standards of safeguarding and compliance and ensure excellent delivery, including impact on other colleagues and work plans.

External Stakeholders: Build strong relationships with key stakeholders, including the Child Protection in Sport Unit and the Ann Craft Trust and other organisations in the fields of equality, anti-doping, safeguarding and child protection, and conduct within sport. Contribute to national and specialist steering groups to improve standards and share best practice. Work with regional management committees, leagues, associations, clubs, local authorities and facility operators, to strengthen their relationships with Basketball England and manage risk to build a thriving network of support partners.

Role Requirements

Qualifications

• Degree level qualification or equivalent, relevant professional experience.
• Minimum Level 2 qualification in Safeguarding (or equivalent); higher-level safeguarding qualification desirable.

Experience

• Significant experience in safeguarding, welfare or integrity roles, including policy development and case management.
• Demonstrable experience of managing complex safeguarding cases and multi-agency working (including LADOs, police and social care).
• Experience providing management oversight of disciplinary or complaints processes.
• Proven experience leading teams and managing specialist professionals.
• Experience reporting to senior stakeholders, Boards or Committees.
• Experience using case trends and insights to inform learning and organisational improvement.

Personal Skills

• Confident & Motivated: Confident with a high degree of self-motivation, self-awareness and initiative.
• Mental Agility & Initiative: Excellent mental agility with the ability to use own initiative to self-organise, plan and work effectively, taking account of changing and competing priorities. Able to work with confidential material, cases and matters of a child protection nature calmly and efficiently.
• Management & Teamwork: Excellent ability to motivate, manage and lead others to work effectively, as well as working as a member of a team, with an understanding of what behaviours contribute to effective teamwork.
• Solution Development: Excellent ability to anticipate issues, problem solve, manage ambiguity and make sound judgements on sensitive matters.
• Attention to Detail & Personal Organisation: High level of demonstrable attention to detail and personal organisation to ensure prioritisation, time management and that all outputs of work are of appropriate standards.
• Customer Service: Excellent ability to demonstrate high levels of customer service and to motivate others to put the customer at the centre of all delivery.
• Confidentiality: Able to maintain the highest ethical standards for confidentiality, transparency, and equality.

Technical Skills

• Interviewing children: Interviewing practices appropriate to child protection situations is desirable.
• Communications: Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, demonstrating an ability to communicate at a senior level and relate to a wide range of people and organisations in the right appropriate format.
• Advanced ICT: Significant advanced expertise in the use of Microsoft packages (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and other related ICT software (systems);
• Numeracy & Literacy: Excellent literacy, spelling and presentation in typewritten and other work.

Other

• A genuine interest in basketball/sport.
• Commitment to Basketball England's values, including safeguarding, equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), and the highest standards of governance and conduct.
• A flexible attitude to working, willing to work evenings and weekends as a result of the nature of the role and event timings.
• Job offers will be subject to completion of a satisfactory, current Basketball England DBS check and completed every three years.