Interim Project Manager
At Sandwell Children’s Trust we strive for excellence to improve the lives of children. Our “Sandwell Deal” brings together our new improved offering that makes Sandwell Children’s Trust a great place to work; it also sets out our expectations of you as a member of staff.
What we can offer you:
- Generous annual leave of up to 31 days, plus 5 additional days for long service recognition.
- Your birthday off paid in addition to annual leave entitlement and 8 Bank Holidays, plus a concessionary day at Christmas.
- You will receive a generous local government career average pension scheme with employer contributions of 21.6%.
- We recognise individual loyalty with service awards from 2, 5, 10 and every 5 years onwards.
- Flexible working patterns that suit you and all of our roles have well‑defined career progression.
- We provide competitive expenses for both mileage (55p per mile) and subsistence, plus access to a comprehensive employee benefits scheme.
With the work that we have done so far and with the ambitions we have for the future, it’s a really exciting time to join Sandwell Children’s Trust and to become part of our “Sandwell Family”.
37 hours per week
Fixed term contract until 31st March 2028
Sandwell Children’s Trust are seeking to recruit an experienced and dynamic Interim Project Manager, reporting to the Programme Manager to support and manage the planning, design and implementation phases of what will be Sandwell’s Best Care Transformation Programme and associated projects to enable system change to be delivered.
The Best Care Transformation Programme is a strategic change programme designed to improve outcomes for children in care and care‑experienced young people through strengthened permanence planning, kinship care, placement sufficiency, residential transformation, reunification where appropriate, and preparation for adulthood.
Reporting to the Programme Manager, the Project Manager will support delivery of the Best Care Transformation Programme, a strategic programme focused on improving outcomes for children in care and care‑experienced young people. The postholder will lead and coordinate a portfolio of projects focused on permanence, kinship care, sufficiency, residential transformation and preparation for adulthood, ensuring effective programme management, governance, stakeholder engagement and delivery of sustainable change across the Trust.
Key responsibilities
- Supporting the development and delivery of the Best Care Transformation Programme, ensuring successful implementation of key workstreams relating to permanence and reunification, kinship and family network care, placement sufficiency and fostering, residential care transformation, preparation for adulthood and care leaver services, and service redesign and sustainability initiatives.
- Ensuring delivery of improved outcomes, system efficiencies and alignment with national reform agendas and the Trust's strategic priorities.
- Developing and enhancing existing social care services and family support provision in Sandwell within the requirements of the government vision of Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive.
- Managing and supporting delivery across the Best Care Transformation Programme, ensuring project and workstream alignment, managing dependencies, risks and issues, and realizing programme benefits; supporting governance arrangements, programme boards, performance reporting and stakeholder engagement.
- Developing and maintaining programme plans, milestone tracking, risk registers and benefits realisation frameworks.
- Establishing effective governance arrangements and preparing reports, briefings and presentations for senior leadership teams, programme boards and other governance forums.
- Coordinating multi‑agency stakeholders across children's social care, education, health, commissioning, housing and wider partners.
- Supporting implementation of the Trust's Permanence Strategy, Kinship Care Strategy, Residential Care Project and Preparing for Adulthood transformation priorities.
- Monitoring programme performance against agreed KPIs, analysing trends and identifying corrective action where required.
- Facilitating workshops, service redesign activity and continuous improvement initiatives that support cultural and practice change.
- Ensuring robust programme documentation, action tracking and audit trails are maintained throughout implementation.
- Driving cost‑effective solutions, identifying and delivering significant savings whilst maintaining high service standards; working within budget restraints as set out in the Trust’s MTFP; establishing, agreeing and monitoring targets for service delivery and management performance.
Qualifications
- Knowledge and experience of children's social care, with a strong understanding of one or more of the following: Children in Care services, Permanence Planning, Kinship Care, Fostering and Sufficiency, Residential Care, Care Leaver Services and Preparing for Adulthood, Ofsted frameworks and improvement activity, National children's social care reforms and policy developments, Proven experience leading and implementing complex, multifaceted transformation projects.
- Knowledge and expertise within Children Services or Social Care and understanding of DfE frameworks, compliance requirements and inspection readiness.
- Comfortable working within a governance environment, regularly reporting on progress to senior executives and stakeholders and being subject to scrutiny.
- Desired: appropriate professional project management qualification (such as Prince2, APM or MSP) or equivalent experience.
Interviews will be held in person on 29th & 30th July in Oldbury, Sandwell.
Sandwell Children's Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of vulnerable groups, including children, and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
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