Service Manager, Quality Assurance

Shape the Future of Children's Services in Swindon

Are you passionate about ensuring excellence in children's social services? Do you have the vision and leadership skills to drive quality and innovation? Swindon Borough Council is seeking an exceptional Service Manager to lead our Quality Assurance function within Children's Services.

Your Impact

In this critical role, you'll be the guardian of quality across our children's services, ensuring that:

• The voice of the child remains at the heart of everything we do
• Practice excellence thrives through meaningful performance management
• Data and evidence drive service improvements that create real impact for children and families
• Teams are empowered to achieve, improve, and find solutions

What Makes This Role Special

This isn't just about monitoring compliance. You'll be a strategic leader who:

• Creates the conditions for relationship-based practice to flourish
• Embeds a culture of reflection, feedback, and continuous learning
• Observes practice firsthand and provides meaningful feedback that transforms service delivery
• Anticipates risks and develops innovative solutions to complex challenges

Who You Are

The ideal candidate will bring:

• Significant social work experience and existing quality assurance expertise alongside a recognised Social Work qualification with Social Work England registration
• Proven experience in child protection and safeguarding services that has helped you to know what good practice looks like
• Strong leadership abilities with evidence of successfully supporting and challenging where needed
• Excellence in communication across multiple audiences and organisational boundaries
• The ability to use data effectively to benchmark performance and drive improvement
• Financial acumen to manage resources efficiently

Candidates must be fluent in the English language (as a requirement of Part 7 of the Immigration Act - for the effective performance of a customer-facing role).

Join Our Mission

This role offers you the chance to make a profound difference to the lives of children and families in Swindon. You'll work alongside committed professionals who share your dedication to best practice and quality of service delivery. What we write on children's files is of the utmost importance and forms part of their history - this must be done to the highest level and with care and compassion. You will ensure this is done consistently and sensitively.

You will join us at an exciting time. Swindon Borough Council is on a journey to transform service delivery and have been shortlisted for the 'Most Improved Council' at the Local Government Awards (LGA). We want our town to be the best it can be. Our ambitious vision in the new Swindon Plan is supported by realistic transformation programmes, with the people of Swindon at their heart. Because that's who we're doing it for - the communities and businesses that make our town great. As part of the Council, you'll support a friendly local authority making decisions with real impact. It's all for better public services. Better processes. And a better quality of life, for everyone. Join us, and Swindon will be better with you.

Please see our Vision and Values page for more details

If you're ready to lead with purpose, inspire excellence, and champion quality in children's services, we want to hear from you.

Apply today and help us create better futures for Swindon's children and young people.

Your next package

Please see our Rewards and Benefits offer for more details.

Your next steps

To be eligible for this role, you must be a qualified Social Worker with Social Work England registration.

As an inclusive employer, we welcome applications from a diverse range of communities, and in particular disabled people and people from ethnic minorities. Read our statement of commitment to equality & inclusion .

Read the role profile and select the Apply button where you will be redirected to the Swindon Borough Council website to complete our online application process. Clicking the 'Apply' button on this job website is not an application, you must register on the Swindon Borough Council website in order to be considered for the role.

A satisfactory enhanced DBS disclosure will be required for this role.

For a confidential conversation about this post please contact Nicola Hannaford, Head of Service Practice, Development and Quality Assurance via email on

If you are experiencing technical issues submitting your application please email