Children's Services

Here at Swindon Borough Council, we’re committed to ensuring children and families feel safe and supported every day. We’re transforming our services and securing even brighter futures –including yours.

Our Children’s Service is rated ‘Good’ by Ofsted but we are not complacent .We have drive and aspirations to continuously transform our service and work towards ‘Outstanding’, to ensure children receive a consistently good service every day.

Ofsted recognised that the quality of leadership and management at all levels is an emerging key strength for us and our permanent senior leadership team, led by our new in post Director of Social Work, is ambitious, energetic and assured in the oversight and delivery of services to children and their families.

We have now implemented the Family Safeguarding Model in 2022, a new multi-disciplinary approach that supports a whole-system change to child protection for children up to adolescence, focusing on supporting the needs of children and adults so that children can safely remain within their families. This is a great opportunity to join us now and be part of this journey from the start.

In addition, we have an established and growing ASYE programme, linked to our Social Care & Leadership Academy, offering mentoring support, fostering a culture of learning and challenge, manageable caseloads and good quality supervision, as we commit and invest in growing our own talent, as well as our experienced social workers. 

Some of the improvements include:

We recognise that getting the best outcomes for our Children means getting the best from you and we have listened to what our Social Workers most value.

As a result, we are delighted to launch our revised offer, to include:

• £3000 “golden hello” payment after 1 years’ service 
• Retention payments of £2000 after completing 2 years’ service and a further £2000 after 3 years’ service
• Relocation allowance of up to £8,000 (eligibility criteria)
• Competitive salaries
• Free car parking at our central Swindon campus
• A career average revalued earnings (CARE) pension scheme
• 25 days holiday (plus bank holidays) rising to 31 days after 10 years’ service
• Leisure and Legal Services discounts
• Eating Out, Shopping and Entertainment discounts
• Flexible working

*Note that the above payments will only be applicable to Social Work roles in core service teams at the following levels: Newly Qualfied, Qualifed, Experienced, Consultant, Senior Practitioner, Assistant Team Manager, Independent Reviewing Officer and Team Manager. 

About You

Your aspirations should be limitless and you will be as determined and passionate about Children’s Services as we are. As a local authority, we continuously drive forward improvements in our services. We want our Social Workers to be part of our transformation, contribute to improving the safeguarding of our children, and we will make sure you have the full support network and training to do it.

Our teams are ambitious and proactive and we are looking for people who will share that ambition and be a part of our journey.

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).

Our commitment to your development

We are dedicated to ensuring that you can progress your continued professional development and access training and learning opportunities linked to the BASW competencies for career progression.

We have an established Social Work & Leadership Academy. The Academy aims to celebrate the best in professional practice in Social Work and Social Care Leadership. The Academy represents an opportunity for us to demonstrate how we support, develop and value the professional disciplines in Social Work and Social Care through a targeted framework of career development and learning opportunities. 

But don’t just take our word for it. Here’s what some of our social workers said about working here: