Service Manager

About the Borough

The London Borough of Sutton is situated less than 30 minutes by train from Central London, with direct connections to London Victoria and London Bridge. Found in zone 5 with good transport links in and out of London, Sutton boasts award winning parks and open spaces, low crime rates, affordable housing and great schools. As well as high levels of resident engagement and satisfaction, providing quality services and success in addressing our financial challenges, whilst involving residents in key issues and high street changes.

Sutton is continuously investing in the health, wellbeing and education of our residents and the future generation, as set out in the “Ambitious for Sutton” corporate plan. We are home to the Royal Marsden Hospital and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together with the development of the London Cancer Hub, Sutton will be the world’s leading life-science district, specialising in cancer research and treatment. Our vision will create around 13,000 jobs while contributing £1.2bn to the UK economy each year, a vibrant community of scientists, doctors and innovative companies intended to deliver real benefits for cancer patients and drive economic growth. With the regeneration of the local areas with new homes and schools, Sutton is passionate about working closely with our residents and vulnerable groups to help them maintain their independence and create a balance between support and independent living.

The Council is seen as a driving force within the South London Partnership of five outer south west London boroughs focused on strategic growth, regeneration and investment. As we strive to improve our services and spaces for our residents as set out in the ‘Ambitious for Sutton’ corporate plan, Sutton aims to shape the future of the borough and adapt to the needs of its residents to make our Borough a great place to live, work and raise a family.

About the Service and Team

The SEND Family Help Service is an exciting new service which consists of a social work team and two teams with alternatively qualified workers working with children who have disabilities and their families. We provide support to children with significant needs, such support including family networks, short breaks, direct work, preparation for adulthood and statutory social work services including child protection and children looked after.

We believe in restorative and trauma informed work with the whole family rooted in robust multi-agency networks of support.

Our service has developed alongside the principles of the Families First approach, with workers retaining relationships with their families, bringing in other services/professionals to support as needed.

We are incredibly ambitious both for our young people achieving and thriving into adulthood and also for our service and are embarking on a new journey to develop a physically located multi-agency SEND Family Hub and Help Service - becoming a place that all families can come to for the right support and care, at the time that they need it.

The London Borough of Sutton has progressed its Families First Model at pace, with our Multi-Agency Child Protection Team in operation from 6th July 2026 and our Multi-Disciplinary Family Help Services, of which the SEND Family Help Service is one. We are hugely excited about the further developments we have planned over the next eight months to further embed our new model!

About the Role and Our Ideal Candidate

The purpose of the Service Manager role is to operationally lead the three Family Help Teams within the SEND Family Help Service:

• Line manage 3 team managers to ensure that each family help team is providing excellent support to families and that practitioners are supported to be enthusiastic, committed and reliable workers for their families and professional networks
• Oversight of the short breaks budget to ensure it is utilised in the best possible way to support a wide range of families, approving requests for finance and attending the weekly short breaks panel
• Lead a positive service culture, ensuring appropriate learning, development and progression opportunities are available for staff via clear service targets.
• Hold positive relationships with the multi-agency partnership to ensure that the best arrangements are in place to support children with disabilities and their families, through attending all appropriate multi-agency panels and meetings.
• Ensure rigorous safeguarding practice to a high standard within the service through high support and high challenge and robust monitoring of performance.
• Ensure that the service is ambitious for the children and young people it is supporting with clear plans in place to realise these ambitions.
  
  

About you

We need a candidate who is ambitious for children with SEND and their families and passionate about delivering and developing services that can provide the best opportunities for young people to thrive within their families and into the future.

You will need to be dynamic, excited about the future direction of SEND Family Help Services and have ideas about driving it forward.

You will be an experienced, qualified social work manager, confident in supporting and developing both experienced and newly qualified staff within a dynamic service culture. You will be a positive communicator, adept at building good working relationships with families and all professional sectors, to agree SMART plans.

You will have some experience of managing a budget and ensuring best value for money.

You will have extensive experience of working in statutory safeguarding settings.

You will have knowledge and experience of applying statutory guidance and legislation to the needs of children with SEND and their families, to ensure the best and safest outcomes can be achieved.

Our Offer to You

As an organisation that values and nurtures talent, we’re committed to helping you fulfil your potential and will offer you a supportive, friendly and collaborative environment to grow and develop your career and skills. We’re constantly striving to improve our ways of working so putting your ideas across however big or small; will be fully encouraged and supported by your colleagues and our dynamic and experienced management team.

Employees have access to a wide range of benefits to enable staff to achieve a work life balance, some of which include:

• A generous annual leave entitlement of 26-32 days plus bank holidays (pro-rata if part-time working hours apply) depending on service and grade
• Enhanced Maternity, paternity, shared parental, adoption and dependents leave
• Two volunteering days per year
• Flexible Working - Smarter Working Scheme (dependent on the role)
• Adjustable and agile working arrangements using Google Chromebooks
• Learning and development portal offering a range of courses
• Discounts on a range of local shops, restaurants, gyms and leisure centres
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Local Government Pension Scheme
• Bicycle loan facilities and cycle to work scheme
• Electric vehicle leasing scheme
• Confidential health & wellbeing and counselling support

Application Process

Apply online outlining what skills, abilities and experience you can bring which makes you an ideal candidate for this role. Please refer to the requirements outlined in the job profile when completing your application and check your CV details have been uploaded correctly in the relevant sections.

We understand and recognise the benefits of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the workplace and are embracing AI where appropriate, to boost our productivity and streamline how we deliver our Council services efficiently; to provide the best possible outcomes for our residents and communities.
However, we reserve the right to reject applications where it is apparent that AI-generated content has been used in isolation and without personalised responses. At Sutton we value authenticity and are looking for individuals who can clearly demonstrate their own skills, experience and motivation for the role that they are applying for and embrace and demonstrate our PRIDE values.
Here at Sutton we have core values of Transparency and this is to be demonstrated during the application process and completion of the supporting statement and will be further tested at interview and selection stage for those who progress forward.

The closing date is given as a guide. We reserve the right to close this vacancy once a sufficient number of applications has been received, it is strongly advised that you complete and submit your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

As part of our award winning Diversity Programme we anonymise all applications received to reduce conscious and unconscious bias enabling every application to be reviewed on the knowledge, skills and experience shown in your application. We encourage our interview panels to be as diverse as possible (age, cultural, neurodiverse etc.) to reduce bias where possible. We are fully committed to removing barriers and enhancing the diversity of our workforce.

Additional Information

We are proud to be a diverse and welcoming Borough and we strive to create a workforce which reflects the community we serve, and instil a sense of belonging in our staff. We celebrate and respect differences and appreciate the value of having a diverse workforce, therefore we welcome applications from under represented groups.

To support our workers and their families we offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, staff engagement forums and inclusive staff networks who help drive our diversity agenda.

We are also proud to be a disability confident employer and guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum essential criteria for a role. As an accredited London Living Wage Employer all our employees are guaranteed the London Living Wage regardless of their length or type of contract.

The UK has a points-based immigration system affecting EU and Non-EU workers and sponsorship requirements. We advise checking the GOV.UK website for right to work guidance. 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.