Head of Education Safeguarding

Consultation grade - subject to formal evaluation under the Pay Equity Review Working 36.5 hours per week Are you a strategic safeguarding leader committed to ensuring children in education are safe, protected and able to thrive? Birmingham City Council is seeking an exceptional professional to lead our Education Safeguarding Service at a time of significant improvement, opportunity, and transformation. In this pivotal role, you will act as the Council's champion for safeguarding within education, ensuring that strong, effective arrangements are in place to protect all children and young people across Birmingham's schools, settings, and wider learning environments. This is an opportunity to make a profound impact on the lives of children and young people across Birmingham. You will join a committed leadership team, drive improvements in safeguarding practice, and shape the future of how we support schools and settings across the city. As Head of Education Safeguarding, you will:

• Be a champion for all children in Birmingham, setting high expectations for safeguarding across the system
• Lead a range of statutory and strategic safeguarding functions on behalf of the Local Authority, ensuring full compliance with legislation including Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) and Working Together to Safeguard Children
• Support schools and settings to safeguard and protect the welfare of children
• Contribute expert knowledge to safeguarding practice for key groups of vulnerable children
• Shape and deliver the vision, strategy and business plans for the Education Safeguarding Service, engaging staff, schools, partners and stakeholders to ensure a consistent, high-quality safeguarding response.
• Develop and maintain strong systems, policies, procedures, and management information to support continuous improvement and excellent service delivery.
• Provide professional expertise, advice and guidance to schools, leaders, and multi-agency partners across Birmingham.
• Lead, motivate and support staff within the Education Safeguarding Service to achieve strong performance, positive culture, and high standards.
  
  You will be an experienced education safeguarding professional with:
• A degree or equivalent professional qualification in education, social care, or a related field.
• Significant leadership experience in safeguarding within education, social care, or local government.
• Deep knowledge of statutory safeguarding duties, child protection processes, and multi-agency working within an education environment
• Strong relationship-building skills, with the ability to influence partners, provide constructive challenge, and promote a culture of safety and learning.
• A commitment to equality, diversity and inclusive practice in all aspects of safeguarding.
  
  Please upload an up-to-date CV and Supporting Statement via the attachments part of your application. The Supporting Statement should outline how you meet the criteria for the role through your personal qualities, skills and experience and include your motivation for applying to the post. Note the Personal Statement should be no more than 1500 words. Unfortunately, we cannot consider any applications without a CV and Personal Statement attached
We encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that represents the communities we serve. Our data tells us that for this level of role, ethnic minorities are underrepresented and therefore we will use positive action to support us to achieve diverse shortlists. This may mean that recruitment times are a little longer, but we think this is worth it to achieve our aim. Birmingham City Council is an accredited Disability Confident Leader employer, and we are committed to employing, retaining and developing all of our people. We want to ensure your recruitment journey with us is a positive and equitable one, so please let us know if there are any reasonable adjustments, additional support, accessibility needs, or if there is any way in which we can support you through your application., Working for Birmingham City Council is more than just a job; it's about making life better for the 1 million plus people who live and work in the city., The Council is a fantastic place to work. You will find an organisation that is both challenging and supportive; with a leadership impatiently adventurous in its pursuit of excellence. There is a clear vision which is ensuring that the Council is working for communities today and building for tomorrow, we focus our resources on five key priorities:
• A Prosperous Birmingham: through a focus on inclusive economic growth, tackling unemployment, attracting inward investment, and maximising the benefits of the Commonwealth Games.
• An Inclusive Birmingham: through a focus on tackling poverty and inequality, empowering citizens, promoting diversity and civic pride, and supporting and enabling all children and young people to thrive.
• A Safe Birmingham: through a focus on making the city safer, safeguarding vulnerable citizens, increasing affordable housing, and tackling homelessness.
• A Healthy Birmingham: through a focus on tackling health inequalities, encouraging physical activity and healthy living, supporting mental health, and improving outcomes for adults with disabilities and older people.
• A Green Birmingham: through a focus on street cleanliness, improving air quality, continuing the route to net zero, and becoming a city of nature.
We see the Council's role as providing strategic leadership - that's being able to visualise a new future for the city and equipping others to share our vision. We want to ensure the provision of services for all, so we can support those least able to support themselves by working with partners and putting citizens and neighbourhoods at the heart of our decision-making. We are always looking for people who put the customer at the centre of their approach, with a commitment to excellence to help us achieve our vision. We will support you to develop and thrive in your role, building a pathway for long-term success, with lots of development opportunities, such as apprenticeships.

In return, we offer you excellent terms and conditions, generous annual leave, a great pension scheme, well-being support, annual travel passes and discounts at a number of city centre establishments.