Permanency Lead
About the job
Salary: £53,460 - £56,681 a year pro rata plus £3,203 car benefit allowance
Hours per week: 37
Contract type: Fixed Term / Secondment (until 31st March 2026)
We are seeking a passionate and driven professional to take on the role of Permanency Lead, a position at the heart of our work to ensure that children and young people achieve timely, appropriate and lasting permanency. This is a pivotal role within Children’s Social Care, promoting best practice across all operational teams, reporting performance to senior leaders and working with external partners including Foster East and Adopt East.
You will lead on embedding permanency within our service, ensuring that the Council’s statutory responsibilities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children are consistently delivered. As part of this, you will oversee high-quality permanency planning meetings, strengthen early planning approaches such as foster to adopt and concurrency planning, and ensure that permanency decisions and placements are timely, child-centred and robust.
The role involves direct line management of the Life Story Work Coordinator and the Improvement Case Manager, as well as dotted line responsibility for adoption family finders and the Fostering and Permanency Panel administrator. You will act as advisor to the Panel, providing professional guidance and quality assurance for the work presented. Alongside this, you will develop innovative approaches to finding and supporting permanent families, drawing on research, best practice and meaningful consultation with children, carers and adoptive parents.
This is a varied and influential role that combines leadership, practice development and partnership working. You will contribute to shaping policy, practice and innovation in permanency, ensuring that looked after children, foster carers, special guardians and adoptive families all have a voice in shaping our services.
Please note this role does not attract sponsorship.
About you
We are looking for a skilled and motivated social work professional with substantial post-qualifying experience in child and family social work, including child protection, care proceedings and permanency. You will hold a recognised social work qualification and be registered with Social Work England. Your deep understanding of current legislation, national standards and best practice in fostering and adoption will be essential to your success in this role.
You will be able to demonstrate a high level of competence in permanency practice, combined with the ability to coach, mentor and inspire colleagues. Strong organisational skills are vital, as is the capacity to balance complex and conflicting demands while maintaining a clear focus on the needs of children. Your communication and negotiation skills will enable you to influence and persuade at a senior level, build strong relationships with internal and external partners, and ensure that the child’s voice remains at the centre of permanency planning.
We are seeking someone who can think and plan strategically while also delivering at an operational level. You will be committed to driving high standards of professional practice, leading by example and promoting innovation in permanency support and family finding. Above all, you will share our commitment to ensuring that every child and young person can grow up in a safe, stable and loving environment.
About us
Our ambitious Luton 2040 Vision – that no-one in Luton will have to live in poverty – is at the heart of everything we do. We recognise that our people are remarkable, talented, committed and passionate about serving our residents.
The people of Luton depend heavily on this council – and that means our workforce! Are you ready to realise the remarkable and help us deliver our vision?
We welcome applications from all sections of the community and are committed to developing a workforce that reflects the diversity of our borough
Application Process
Because of the nature of this job, it will be necessary for the appropriate level of criminal record disclosure to be undertaken. This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and therefore applicants are required to declare all unspent cautions and convictions; and also any adult cautions (simple or conditional), and spent convictions that are not protected as defined by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (as amended in 2020). A person’s criminal record will not in itself prevent a person from being appointed to this post. Applicants will not be refused posts because of offences which are not relevant to, and do not place them at or make them a risk in, the role for which they are applying. However in the event of the employment being taken up, any failure to disclose such offence, as detailed above, will result in dismissal or disciplinary action by the Authority.
On occasions, we may close a vacancy early due to a very high number of applications being received.
Benefits
We offer a range of excellent staff benefits which include:
- From 25 to 32 days’ annual leave: linked to length of service and grade
- Buying annual leave scheme: buy up to 20 days additional annual leave
- Career Pathways: step up in your career or move into a specialist area
- Pension scheme: with generous employer contributions of up to 20.2 per cent (at July 2023) and 3x salary death in service grant
- Generous relocation package: up to £8,000 (subject to eligibility)
- Employee Assistance Programme: a free, 24/7 confidential counselling and wellbeing support service available to all employees, their partner or spouse and dependent children over 16 still living at home
- Work/life balance: flexible working options including working from home where possible. We welcome requests for flexible working arrangements including part-time hours and alternative working patterns
- Training and support: unlimited access to development courses, mentoring and support and clear career pathways
- Staff offers: includes discounts on your MOT, gym and fitness, restaurants and salons
- Arriva Travel Club: great value savings on local bus travel
How to apply
We understand that job applications take time and effort, but a high-quality application shows that you are professional with a good attention to detail. The recruiting manager may receive a number of applications for each job advertised so you want yours to stand out!
Our ‘How to apply' page has more tips to help with your application: How to apply
Available documents
Attached documents are available under links. Clicking a document link will initialize its download.Salary range
- £53,460 - £56,681 per year