Service Manager - Emergency Duty Service

Staffordshire County Council; Stafford; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

Staffordshire County Council is seeking an experienced social work leader to head the countywide Emergency Duty Service. You will provide strategic and operational leadership across children's services, adult social care and mental health crisis response to ensure timely, lawful safeguarding and protective actions.

In this fixed-term 12-month contract you will drive service improvement, multi-agency collaboration and high standards of practice, overseeing risk, out-of-hours placements and

Qualifications

• recognised social work qualification and current professional registration.
• Significant post-qualification experience within children's services, adult social care, mental health services or safeguarding environments.
• Extensive experience leading and managing emergency, crisis response or safeguarding teams, including service improvement, quality assurance and performance oversight.
• Strong knowledge of safeguarding legislation and statutory frameworks across children, adults and mental health services.
• Proven ability to lead service development, change management and continuous improvement using performance data, QA and learning reviews.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop the Emergency Duty Service, ensuring high-quality out-of-hours responses to safeguarding, crisis and emergency situations.
• Provide leadership and support to managers and practitioners, promoting confident decision-making, professional accountability and a learning culture.
• Build strong partnerships with health services, police, AMHPs and other agencies for coordinated crisis responses.
• Oversee service performance, quality assurance activities and demand management for continuous improvement.
• Lead service development and improvement initiatives, strengthening safeguarding pathways and multi-agency emergency response arrangements.
• Ensure robust risk management, emergency placements, safeguarding interventions and smooth transitions between out-of-hours and daytime services.

Skills

Leadership

Decision making under pressure

Communication skills

Partnership working

Safeguarding legislation knowledge

Education

Social work qualification and registration

Job description

Are you an experienced social work leader who thrives in a fast-paced environment where effective decision-making can make a real difference?

This is a unique opportunity to lead a countywide Emergency Duty Service, providing strategic and operational leadership across children's services, adult social care and mental health crisis response, ensuring people receive timely support and protection when they need it most.

Fixed Term 12 Month Contract

Main Responsibilities

You will provide leadership for an out-of-hours emergency response service, ensuring safe, effective and legally compliant decision-making across a range of complex safeguarding situations. Working with internal teams and external partners, you will drive high standards of practice, service improvement and multi-agency collaboration to achieve the best possible outcomes for children, adults and families.

You will:

• Lead and develop the Emergency Duty Service, ensuring high-quality out-of-hours responses to safeguarding, crisis and emergency situations.
• Provide leadership and support to managers and practitioners, promoting confident decision-making, professional accountability and a positive learning culture.
• Build strong partnerships with health services, police, Approved Mental Health Professionals (AMHPs) and other key agencies to ensure coordinated and effective crisis responses.
• Oversee service performance, quality assurance activities and demand management, using insight and learning to continuously improve service delivery.
• Lead service development and improvement initiatives, strengthening quality assurance arrangements, out-of-hours safeguarding pathways and multi-agency emergency response arrangements.
• Ensure robust management of risk, emergency placements, safeguarding interventions, Mental Health Act responses and seamless transitions between out-of-hours and daytime services.

The Ideal Candidate

The minimum criteria that will be used to shortlist for this role will be:

• A recognised social work qualification and current professional registration.
• Significant post-qualification experience within children's services, adult social care, mental health services or safeguarding environments.
• Extensive experience leading and managing emergency, crisis response or safeguarding teams, including experience of service improvement, quality assurance and performance oversight.
• Strong knowledge of safeguarding legislation and statutory frameworks, including responsibilities relating to children, adults and mental health services.
• Proven ability to lead service development, change management and continuous improvement, using performance data, quality assurance and learning reviews to improve services.
• Proven ability to make sound professional judgements and manage high-risk situations under pressure.
• Excellent leadership, communication and partnership-working skills, with the ability to influence, motivate and build effective relationships across organisations and professional disciplines.

Need more information? If you’re unsure whether your skills and experience meet the needs for the role, please get in touch with us, we’d love to chat to you! You can reach Angela Curran Head of Service IFD, EDS, MACPT - [e-mail]

“We’re happy to talk flexible working”

This post will be subject to an enhanced DBS check and Police vetting.

Interviews dates to be confirmed

Our Recruitment Process: We anonymise applications during shortlisting to ensure only relevant information is considered. Please complete your application fully, including education and employment history and the supporting statement, to highlight what you’ll bring to the role.

For information, please note that there is currently an ongoing review within Children and Families to realign individual teams and the wider team’s ways of working. As a result, this role may be affected by the review. For further information, please speak to the hiring manager.

Please note: The minimum criteria in the ideal candidate section detailed above will be used if you are applying under one of our Interview Guarantee Schemes detailed below.

About Staffordshire County Council

We are no ordinary county council:

Our Values:

The core of who we are as an organisation. Just like we all have personal values that shape our thoughts and behaviour, organisational values drive how we think and act collectively.

Our values were created and shaped by colleague feedback and national best practice and they sit at the heart of People Strategy:

We have a real sense of community spirit that brings our people together. This feeling of belonging means we are all connected to what we do and take pride in the difference we make every day for Staffordshire people. We are ambitious and our sights are set firmly on a better future.

We look forward and race ahead - that goes for your career too.

Our benefits:

We recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive working environment where employees can achieve their full potential and achieve a healthy work-life balance.

In addition to your salary, as a member of staff, you will have access Our rewards and benefits - Careers at Staffordshire

Our recruitment process:

As an Authority we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people/vulnerable adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Staffordshire County Council is an equal opportunities organisation and Disability Confident employer. We encourage applications from all background and communities

As part of our commitment as a Disability Confident employer, a Gold Award Armed Forces employer and our commitment to supporting care leavers - we offer a guaranteed interview as long as your application meets the minimum criteria for the post.

As you’ll know safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our children and young people/vulnerable adults is important to us and that’s why this position is subject to a criminal record check from the Disclosure and Barring Service. If applicable you should disclose details of unspent and unfiltered spent reprimands, formal warnings, cautions and convictions in your application form.