Quality Assurance Officer - Children's Social Care (pay award pending)
Apply / view full listing →We are seeking an experienced Quality Assurance Officer to play a key role in supporting and strengthening practice across Children’s Social Care. Through audit, moderation, quality assurance activities and the promotion of learning and continuous improvement, you will help drive positive outcomes for children, young people and their families.
At Bracknell Forest, we pride ourselves on being a council which is stable and well-managed where our employees can thrive in a supportive environment. We understand the importance of a healthy work-life balance and offer a variety of flexible working practices, including options for remote working and arrangements that allow you to work from home, dependent on the needs of the service.
This role includes an expectation to work from our Time Square office 2 days per week, alongside flexible working arrangements.
About you...
As a Quality Assurance Officer, you must be Social Work England registered with experience of working in Children’s Social Care.
You will bring a strong understanding of safeguarding and statutory guidance, together with the ability to identify, promote and support good and outstanding practice across assessment, analysis, planning, review, supervision and management oversight.
You will play a key role in implementing and continuously strengthening our Children’s Social Care quality assurance framework, helping us understand the quality and impact of practice and whether our work is making a demonstrable difference to children and families.
This role will support a clear link between audit findings, learning, action and measurable improvement, ensuring that quality assurance activity leads to practical changes in practice, supervision, planning and service development.
You will be able to analyse both quantitative and qualitative information, identify themes, strengths, risks, and learning and translate quality assurance findings into clear, actionable recommendations that drive service improvement and deliver measurable outcomes for children and families.
You will have experience of quality assurance, audit or practice improvement activity, strong report-writing skills, confidence in offering constructive challenge and the ability to work collaboratively with practitioners, managers, senior leaders and partner agencies.
You will also be able to identify issues relating to equality, diversity, disproportionality and inclusion and use this learning to support better practice.
We recognise this is a unique role, as such you will benefit from a strong induction plan and will have direct support and guidance from the Head of Quality Assurance.
About the team...
The Quality Assurance Officer is based within the Commissioning Service and is part of a small, experienced Quality Assurance team.
We work closely with Children’s Social Care, the Principal Social Worker, performance colleagues, senior leaders and partner agencies to support practice development and improvement.
We know that social work is both rewarding and demanding. We favour a relational approach in all that we do and have a secure staffing establishment which has provided consistency for the children we oversee and strong working relationships with social work colleagues in Children Social Care and external partners.
We use audit, moderation, data, feedback from children and families, complaints, compliments and inspection learning to build a clear picture of practice quality, impact and outcomes.
Key responsibilities...
Support the implementation and delivery of the Children’s Social Care quality assurance framework.
Support the annual audit and moderation programme, including thematic, dip-sample and multi-agency audit activity.
Help ensure audit findings are translated into clear actions, tracked to completion and tested for evidence of practice improvement and impact.
Work with performance, data and practice leads to triangulate audit findings with wider intelligence, including complaints, compliments, feedback and inspection learning.
Coordinate moderation, learning forums and feedback sessions so that findings are shared promptly and used to support teams and managers.
Ensure the voices of children, young people, parents, carers and partner agencies are reflected in quality assurance activity.
Produce concise, analytical reports for senior leaders and governance forums, identifying strengths, risks, themes, disproportionality, impact and recommended actions.
Support Ofsted/ILACS readiness, self-evaluation, focused assurance activity and improvement planning.
Contribute to wider practice improvement, including assessment and planning quality, supervision, child protection, children in care, care leaver practice and family help reforms.
Identify and escalate significant safeguarding, practice quality or compliance concerns through agreed governance routes.
Our benefits...
28 days annual leave increasing to 33 days after 3 years’ continuous service, with the opportunity to buy up to 10 and sell up to 5 days.
Hybrid working opportunities to support your wellbeing and work-life balance.
Paid employee volunteering scheme.
Local government pension scheme, with life insurance cover.
Electric vehicle salary sacrifice scheme (subject to eligibility).
Reimbursement of Social Work England registration.
Recognition of continuous service attained within the NHS and UKHSA when calculating some benefits. (Terms and Conditions apply)
Career development through internal and external training opportunities.
Enhanced maternity, paternity, adoption and fostering leave.
Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) to support your health and wellbeing
Inclusive and social working environment with a variety of staff networks and a sports and social club.
Find out more about all our benefits or see the candidate pack.
Our values...
At Bracknell Forest Council our values define who we are and what is important to us. Our core values are inclusive, ambitious, and always learning. These values influence the way we work with each other and the way we serve our residents and engage with our communities. We make our values real by demonstrating them in how we behave every day. If you are excited about joining a diverse team that celebrates learning and strives for excellence, we would love to hear from you.
Reasonable adjustments...
We are committed to ensuring an inclusive recruitment process for all applicants. If you require any reasonable adjustments to support your application or interview, please let us know by contacting [email protected]. We will work with you to support you throughout the process. Find out more about reasonable adjustments.
Disability confident and inclusive recruitment
Bracknell Forest Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Leader and an inclusive employer. This means that if you tell us on your application form that you have a disability, are an armed forces veteran or are a care leaver, you will be guaranteed an interview if you meet the essential criteria outlined in the person specification.
Interview date
Interview date to be confirmed.
Interviews will be conducted in person, providing candidates with the chance to personally meet the team and experience our work environment.
We will be reviewing applications regularly and reserve the right to close the advert early if suitable candidates are identified. To avoid disappointment, you are advised to submit your application as soon as possible.
Please note AI is prohibited during the interview, any candidate using AI will be withdrawn from consideration.
Want to ask us a question?
For an informal discussion or to ask any questions about this role, please contact:
Kogie Perumall, Head of Quality Assurance
Tel.: 01344-352767
Bracknell Forest Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. We expect everyone employed with us to share this commitment. All successful candidates for this role will be subject to a DBS (Disclosure & Barring Service) check as part of our pre-employment checks process.
We can only accept applications from candidates currently residing in the UK.
Candidates currently residing in the UK who require sponsorship to work are encouraged to assess their eligibility for a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) based on the relevant criteria. Please be aware that sponsorship availability varies and is subject to eligibility requirements and budget limitations. As a result, we cannot guarantee sponsorship for all roles and will evaluate sponsorship requests on a case-by-case basis.