Child's Planning & Improv Officer - (Perm / Full Time) - REF:HSCP / 82340 - INV06813

Job Description

Child's Planning & Improv Off REF: HSCP/ 82340

Salary: Grade 10 £54,596 - £57,914

Location: James Watt Building

Hours Per Week: 37 Hours

Join a service that is transforming how we support children, young people and families.

As a Child’s Planning and Improvement Officer, you will play an important role in providing independent oversight, scrutiny and challenge within children’s planning. You will chair Looked After and Accommodated Children (LAAC) and Looked After at Home (LAAH) Reviews, alongside other statutory and multi-agency planning and review meetings, ensuring that plans are purposeful, timely and focused on achieving the best possible outcomes for children and young people.

At the heart of our approach is The Promise and our ambition that children and young people are listened to, meaningfully involved in decisions about their lives and experience consistent, trusting relationships with the people who support them. We have introduced Signs of Safety and Healing as our practice framework, supporting strengths-based and collaborative work with children, families and partner agencies.

As Child’s Planning and Improvement Officer, you will:

• Chair children’s planning and review meetings, maintaining a clear focus on the child or young person and the outcomes that matter to them.
• Promote the rights, voice and participation of children and young people, ensuring their views and experiences are central to planning and decision-making.
• Provide appropriate professional scrutiny and challenge, supporting high-quality assessment, planning and decision-making.
• Contribute to quality assurance, audit and improvement activity across Children’s Services, identifying areas of strength, learning and development.
• Support the embedding of The Promise and Signs of Safety and Healing, promoting relationship-based, trauma-informed and strengths-based practice.
• Work collaboratively with social work teams, managers and partner agencies to promote consistency and high standards of practice.
• Use learning and themes from children’s planning, reviews and quality assurance activity to contribute to wider service development and improvement.

We are looking for an experienced and confident practitioner with strong professional judgement, excellent communication skills and the ability to provide constructive challenge while building positive and collaborative relationships. You will share our ambition for children and young people and understand the importance of ensuring that their voices and experiences influence both their own plans and how our services continue to develop.

You will find that Inverclyde is a great place to work. We are small enough to be agile and responsive, allowing you to make a real difference, while offering strong professional support, development opportunities and the opportunity to contribute to improvement across Children’s Services.

If this sounds like where you’re meant to be, we would love to hear from you. For an informal discussion about this exciting opportunity and to learn more about our ambition for the future, contact Emma Bilsland, Service Manager on / emma.bilsland@inverclyde.gov.uk.

Inverclyde Council offers a wide range of benefits to employees including flexible working opportunities, attractive pension schemes, a Buy and Bank Annual Leave Scheme, career development and health and wellbeing support.

You can find out more in our Employee Benefits Booklet which is available on our website Employee Benefits - Inverclyde Council

Important Applicant Information:

• Please read the Essential Applicant Information details prior to submitting your application.

• Please note that if you apply via this website it is important that you regularly check your emails following your application submission. All further communication regarding your application, including any invite to interview and, if relevant, details of any formal offer/contract, will be done by email. You should ensure that your email is set up to receive emails from MYJOBSCOTLAND and Inverclyde Council, and that they are not filtered into any JUNK/SPAM folders.

• Inverclyde Council is an accredited Living Wage Employer paying the Living Wage Rate where required.  Please click the link to `Essential Applicant Information’ above for more information.

• Inverclyde Council is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workforce and welcomes applications from all members of the community.

• Applicants must have the right to work in the UK as we do not hold a sponsorship license.

Vetting by Disclosure Scotland

If you work in regulated work (children and/or protected adults) you will be subject to obtaining a satisfactory PVG. A small number of posts require a Standard or Basic Disclosure check and the majority of all other posts will complete a Criminal Convictions Form. All disclosure checks are obtained via Disclosure Scotland. If you are the successful candidate you will be required to pay the cost of the disclosure check required for your post.

Regulatory Bodies

If your post requires registration with a Regulatory Body such as HCPC or SSSC etc., you are required to obtain and maintain registration including paying any fees for HCPC. As part of the local government pay deal, local authority staff are no longer required to pay SSSC fees.  

Further Assistance

Alternative application packs can be requested in other formats for example, Large Print, Braille and Audio. To request an alternative application pack or require further assistance to attend and/or participate in an interview, please contact the HR Recruitment Team on or email Human Resources at: Human.Resources@inverclyde.gov.uk.

Armed Forces Personnel/Reservists

Inverclyde Council welcomes applications from former armed forces personnel / reservists. Many of the skills picked up during your military career could be transferred directly into a role with local government.

Disability Confident

We are a Disability Confident Leader and offer a guaranteed interview to applicants who consider themselves to be disabled and who meet the essential criteria for the job.

Flexible Working

Inverclyde Council recognises the mutual benefits of having a flexible, effective workforce to deliver the best services to our community, whilst enabling employees to balance their personal, home and work responsibilities more effectively, with a view to achieving greater job satisfaction, motivation, morale and productivity. 

Employees are able to apply for a range of options including Part-Time Working, Job share, Compressed Hours, Homeworker, Hybrid Working and Flexible Retirement. More detail can be found in the Flexible Working Policy, linked in the download section of our Employee Benefits web page.