Role Title: Head of Service - Education & Skills
Based at: Civic Office, Waterdale, Doncaster, DN1 3BU
Salary: SMG £62,336.00 - £67,470.00 (Subject to pay award)
Contract / hours: Open Ended, Full Time / 37 hours per week
Closing Date: Sunday 4th December 2022
Enhanced Level DBS Disclosure is required for appointment to this post. English Fluency Duty Under The Immigration Act 2016: As you are applying for a customer facing role, you must have the ability to converse easily with customers being able to provide advice and guidance in accurate spoken English.
There’s never been a more exciting time to join Doncaster Council.
We are passionate about Doncaster - it is a great place to live, do business and visit.
We have plenty to shout about, Doncaster is the UK’s best-connected location; we have many major developments in the pipeline, a vibrant urban centre with a thriving art and cultural scene, sport and leisure attractions, wonderful green spaces and a fascinating heritage. We firmly believe, as do our partners, that Doncaster is the place to be with a bright future and ambitions ahead of it. But don’t just take our word for it – anyone joining the council, can look forward to expanding their knowledge and skills in a dynamic, creative and nurturing environment while truly making a difference to the communities we serve.
From 1st September 2022 children’s social care, which has been run in recent years by a Trust, returned to the Council, creating huge opportunities for the greater integration of services and the potential to drive rapid improvement.
In September 2021, the Mayor and Cabinet agreed the new Borough Strategy – Doncaster Delivering Together. This prospectus sets out Team Doncaster’s vision for post-pandemic recovery and a confident, bold ambition for Doncaster’s future. It set out a central mission for Thriving People, Places and Planet, which balances the wellbeing of people and places with the planet.
The Doncaster Delivering Together Strategy, its goals, and priorities make clear that developing and promoting engagement in the lifelong learning offer across the borough is fundamental to Doncaster’s future. The mission for the Prosperous and Connected Goal is to achieve a stronger, greener and fairer economy that provides good, well-paid jobs supported by improved connectivity.
The Wellbeing Wheel shows our six long-term goals - ‘beacons’ that we are working towards and the importance of the ‘Great 8’ priorities that will drive our work, to meet the goals within our Wellbeing Wheel that we need to deliver for Doncaster over the next ten years.
Aligned to Doncaster Delivering Together and the Great 8, we have set out our bold ambition in our Education and Skills 2030 Strategy, which is fundamental to the delivery of our economic strategy. This strategy is recognised and motivated by the changing educational, social, economic, and technological landscape with a clear vision for ‘Equitable and inclusive lifelong learning that empowers people to fulfil their aspirations and thrive in life and work’ at its heart. Five life-stage priorities outline the strategic direction that will be taken to realise this vision. In addition, the ‘Working Better Together’ section includes nine delivery principles and a transformative blueprint for the future (the Talent and Innovation Ecosystem, ‘TIE’).
We believe that this is a key strategic moment for Doncaster, despite these achievements and outcomes must continue to improve at pace to go beyond catching up with the national. More fundamentally this requires gap closure between disadvantaged learners and their peers, whilst facing head on a very real series of skills related challenges, reflected by a low wage, low skill economy, a high proportion of working age adults with no qualifications and an exodus of young people leaving the borough to access work and higher education.
This is why we are now seeking to transform the system itself and forge our own path as a leading location for talent development and innovation. We are doing this with key partners internationally, nationally, regionally and locally, taking a long term view of education and skills, last year hosting the first Global Education Leaders Partnership in the UK, where the work to design a Talent and Innovation Eco-system. We believe that we can achieve this through working collaboratively to leverage our community assets and raise expectations and aspirations, delivering on our vision.
This, alongside the work that we are doing to support across sufficiency, ensuring that the needs of all children, young people (0-25) and their families are identified, met and support provided. Is to be underpinned by good quality placement planning, including integrated commissioning of places, school organisation admissions, school transport, developing a single sufficiency strategy ensuring future needs are met in line with the Council’s ambitions, going beyond the sufficiency duty for all young people 0-25. This will reach beyond the curriculum and the core offer, bringing social care, early help and education together to inform place planning and support.
Could you lead the delivery on these key strategic priorities, whilst demonstrating partnership leadership, underpinned by real operational impact at pace, then we would like to hear from you.
The successful applicants will join at an exciting time for Children Services in Doncaster. The Head of Service group are newly formed and the re-joining of children social care services and council children services provides an exciting opportunity to build on positive cultures and reset our ambitions to deliver high quality, timely services.
In respect of this role, the successful applicant will lead one of the fundamental long-term strategies for the Council, i.e. the Education and Skills Strategy 2030. This strategy includes the five life-stages for lifelong learning to realise the 10 year vision towards ‘Equitable and inclusive lifelong learning that empowers people to fulfil their aspirations and thrive in life and work’
This role also includes providing strategic leadership and working with the Head of Skills (who is the lead) to deliver key strands. Leading the development and implementation of innovative approaches to learning with all education settings, partners, voluntary, community and faith sector communities.
In the context of this strategy, the post holder will also be responsible for the day to day oversight of education services. Our work with schools over recent years has seen an increasing number of schools judged good or better by Ofsted, with outcomes at all stages making significant improvements. However, we are not complacent and there are still have too many schools with OfSTED judgements that are less than good and it remains a challenge to ensure these schools get the support and challenge that is required.
Further details about the responsibilities and requirements of the role are contained in the job profile and role summary.
In return for your hard work and dedication, we can offer you the chance to be part of a great team dedicated to ensuring that all people in Doncaster thrive. You will also have access to a variety of attractive employee benefits including competitive leave entitlement, local government pension scheme and access to a range of staff discount and flexible benefits schemes. Visit our Working in Doncaster page to find out more.
Shortlisting will take 7th December 2022 and it is anticipated that interviews will be held on the 14th December 2022.
For further details/queries email: LOSCHOSConsultation@doncaster.gov.uk
Recruiting Assistant Director is: Leanne Hornsby - 01302 734865
Doncaster Council is committed to meeting the needs of our diverse community where we strive to improve the quality of life for all. We are also committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and adults and expect all staff to share these commitments.
This post involves working with children and therefore if successful you will be required to apply for a disclosure of criminal records check at an enhanced level. Further information about the Disclosure Scheme can be found at www.gov.uk/disclosure-barring-service-check
