Job Description

Careers and Participation Service Lead

Permanent

Grade 6 - £54,495- £64,811

Consultation grade - subject to formal evaluation under the Pay Equity Review

Working 36.5 hours per week

Following a service restructure, Birmingham City Council is creating a new Post 16 Service Lead role within the Children and Families Directorate. This is an exciting opportunity to provide strategic leadership for a key area of statutory delivery, supporting young people across the city to access, participate in and progress through appropriate education, employment and training pathways.

The successful candidate will lead the development of a Post 16 Strategy for Birmingham, ensuring the Council meets its statutory duties and delivers high-quality support for young people, including vulnerable cohorts and young people with SEND. Working closely with colleagues in Skills and Employability, education providers, statutory partners, voluntary and community sector organisations, you will help shape a joined-up citywide approach that improves outcomes and reflects the aspirations of young people, families and communities.

What you will be doing

• Providing strategic leadership for the Post 16 service and designated teams, ensuring clear priorities, strong performance and effective delivery.
• Developing and delivering a citywide Post 16 Strategy that supports statutory responsibilities and maximises available capacity and resources.
• Building strong partnerships across schools, colleges, training providers, statutory agencies, voluntary and community organisations and internal Council services.
• Working collaboratively with the Skills and Employability Service to strengthen pathways, provision and participation for young people.
• Leading annual business planning, service improvement, performance management, governance, risk management and change activity across the portfolio.
• Managing allocated budgets effectively and ensuring compliance with Council financial regulations, policies and procedures.
• Creating a positive, inclusive and improvement-focused culture within teams, with clear communication, appropriate delegation and active workforce development.
• Translating strategic priorities into measurable outcomes that improve services and support the Council’s wider priorities for children, young people and families.

About you

We are looking for an experienced, confident and collaborative leader who can operate strategically while maintaining a clear focus on delivery, quality and outcomes. You will be able to work across complex systems, build trust with partners and provide strong leadership through change.

You will bring graduate-level education in a relevant field, or significant leadership experience in an equivalent role. You will have experience of leading teams, managing resources, improving services, developing policy or strategy, managing risk and delivering complex programmes or projects within financial and governance requirements.

You will also be able to demonstrate excellent communication, negotiation and influencing skills, with the ability to engage a wide range of audiences and translate strategic priorities into clear, practical action. You will be comfortable managing competing priorities, working within legislative and organisational requirements, and developing services in a changing environment.

Why join us?

This is a pivotal opportunity to influence the future direction of Post 16 support in Birmingham at a time of change and improvement. You will be joining a committed directorate with a strong focus on inclusion, partnership working and better outcomes for children, young people and families.

As Post 16 Service Lead, you will play a central role in shaping a newly established service, strengthening collaboration across the city and ensuring Birmingham’s young people are supported to move successfully into adulthood, learning, employment and wider opportunities.

Please upload an up-to-date CV and Supporting Statement via the attachments part of your application. The Supporting Statement should outline how you meet the criteria for the role through your personal qualities, skills and experience and include your motivation for applying to the post. Note the Personal Statement should be no more than 1500 words. Unfortunately, we cannot consider any applications without a CV and Personal Statement attached

We encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that represents the communities we serve. Our data tells us that for this level of role, ethnic minorities are underrepresented and therefore we will use positive action to support us to achieve diverse shortlists. This may mean that recruitment times are a little longer, but we think this is worth it to achieve our aim.

Birmingham City Council is an accredited Disability Confident Leader employer, and we are committed to employing, retaining and developing all of our people.

We want to ensure your recruitment journey with us is a positive and equitable one, so please let us know if there are any reasonable adjustments, additional support, accessibility needs, or if there is any way in which we can support you through your application.

For any informal enquires please contact the Resourcing Team <Resourcing@birmingham.gov.uk>

A Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check will be undertaken.

Proof of Right to work in the UK will be required for all applicants in accordance with UK Home Office requirements, before any employment offer can be confirmed.

Birmingham City Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our citizens and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. You can view our Corporate Safeguarding Policy | Birmingham City Council here.

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