Person specification
Job title: Accountant
Attibutes
Experience
Essential:
- Demonstrable experience in a Finance environment.
- Experience of managing and leading a team.
Desirable:
- Knowledge of process improvement and LEAN techniques.
- Experience and knowledge of Public Sector.
Education, qualifications and training
Essential:
- Educated to SCQF level 9
- Membership of the Association of Accounting Technicians or part qualification with a Committee of Consultative Accountancy Bodies (CCAB) or equivalent.
Desirable:
- Membership of a CCAB accounting body.
Skills and knowledge
Essential:
- Excellent knowledge of Microsoft Office suite, particularly Excel.
- A thorough knowledge of integrated financial accounting systems
- Accounting expertise in interpreting and applying accounting standards and guidance and other resource information.
- Experience of working in a business partnering role to support budget managers
- Ability to prepare financial reports.
- Annual Accounts preparation.
- Budgeting and budgetary control.
- Excellent negotiation and influencing skills.
- Good judgement and decision-making skills.
- Ability to analyse numerical and written information and present results in a clear and concise format.
- Concise and clear oral, written and presentation skills.
- Ability to work under pressure with strict deadlines.
- Planning and organisation skills.
Desirable:
- Oracle financial systems experience.
- Experience of a coaching culture and using coaching to support staff.
Key performance outcomes
Effective communication
Essential:
- Articulate and positive communicator on a 1-1 basis and in larger groups.
- Ability to express ideas clearly and concisely and to adapt communication to suit different audiences.
- Ability to explain complex financial information to a range of audiences including non-specialists.
- Listens to feedback and ideas from others and takes appropriate and considered action.
Impact and influence
Essential:
- Demonstrates ability to influence at all levels.
- Ability to give realistic advice, based on relevant, up to date and verifiable information.
- Evidence of building positive relationships, engaging and collaborating effectively with others internally and externally.
Improvement focus
Essential:
- Identifies gaps in process and performance and makes appropriate suggestions for improvements.
- Aware of trends and changes and maintains professional knowledge and skills.
- Uses knowledge and experience to gather and consolidate information in order to make appropriate changes and improvements.
Objective decision-making:
Essential:
- Demonstrates analytical and systematic approach to problem solving.
- Ability to make appropriate and realistic judgments, based on professional expertise, relevant, up to date and verifiable information.
- Ability to analyse complex information.
Planning and organising
Essential:
- Involves others where appropriate and optimises resources to achieve desired results.
- Regularly reviews joint goals and targets and reprioritises where necessary.
- Recognises the need to be flexible in order to meet changing priorities.
Team working
Essential:
- Contributes to and supports the work and decisions of the team.
- Contributes to the shared vision and purpose and shares this effectively.
- Works collaboratively with a wide range of teams across the Care Inspectorate.
Please note – these are key performance outcomes to be used to recruit into the role.
Person specification
Job title: Senior Communications and Engagement Lead
Attributes
Experience
Essential:
- Knowledge and experience of working in and across a complex stakeholder landscape.
- Proven experience in developing and implementing successful communications and engagement strategies for change programmes.
- Experience of working with different stakeholder groups, both external and internal.
- Experience leading a group of diverse stakeholders (including senior stakeholders and disengaged groups) through a change project, advising on appropriate engagement methods / tools to effectively deliver and embed the change.
- Experience of working on digital transformation projects
Desirable:
- Ability to identify, flag, and manage communication risks, ensuring issues are addressed proactively.
Education, qualifications and training
Essential:
- Communications-based subject or equivalent.
Desirable:
- Educated to Degree level or equivalent.
Skills and knowledge
Essential:
- Highly developed specialist knowledge.
- Effective written and oral communication skills.
- Excellent organisation skills.
- Proficiency in MS Office, including PowerPoint ab
- Excellent attention to accuracy, details and overall work quality while meeting deadlines as required.
- Strong project management skills.
- Ability to work with minimal supervision.
- Ability to work flexibly dealing with changing priorities at short notice.
- Ability to work both independently as part of a team.
Desirable:
- Knowledge of the social care sector.
Key performance outcomes
Effective communication:
- Proficiency in creating compelling, clear, and impactful content tailored to diverse audiences and communication channels.
- Ability to explain complex issues to diverse stakeholders in a clear and engaging way, both verbally and in writing.
- Strong collaboration and stakeholder engagement skills.
- Ability to work collaboratively with different teams and build effective relationships with stakeholders at all levels of the organisation.
Impact and influence:
- Demonstrable ability to influence at all levels.
- Ability to give realistic advice, based on relevant, up to date and verifiable information.
- Evidence of building positive relationships, engaging and collaborating effectively with others internally and externally.
Objective decision making:
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to identify and address stakeholder concerns and adjust communication strategies accordingly.
- Ability to make appropriate and realistic judgments, based on professional expertise, relevant, up-to-date and verifiable information.
- Ability to analyse complex information.
Planning and organising:
- Ability to work under broad direction (often self-initiating work) to establish milestones and successfully meet objectives.
- Involves others where appropriate and optimises resources to achieve desired results.
- Regularly reviews joint goals and targets and reprioritises where necessary.
- Recognises the need to be flexible in order to meet changing priorities.
Team working:
- Contributes to and supports the work and decisions of the project team.
- Contributes to the shared vision and purpose and shares this effectively.
- Commitment to innovation in communication practices and continuous improvement based on feedback and performance data.
Please note – these are key performance outcomes to be used to recruit into the role. Successful applicants will be assessed against all the performance indicators used in the Performance Development Review System once established in the role.
Person specification
Job title: Business Support Assistant
Attributes
Experience
Essential:
- Demonstrate a successful track record within a similar role.
Desirable:
- Experience of working with external/internal contacts at all levels.
- Experience of working within the social care sector.
Education, qualifications and training
Essential:
- You will be educated to SCQF Level 5
Skills and knowledge
Essential:
- Good working knowledge of IT to include word, excel and PowerPoint.
- Excellent telephone and customer service skills.
- Good interpersonal skills.
- Excellent organisational skills.
- Ability to work on own initiative and prioritisation of workload.
- Ability to meet deadlines.
Key performance outcomes
Effective communication
- Portrays a positive image of the Care Inspectorate when communicating both inside the organisation and externally.
- Selects appropriate communication, style and methods depending on the needs and abilities of the audience.
- Listens actively to people, questions and checks understanding.
Planning and organising
- Uses a systematic approach to make efficient use of time and manage workload.
- Recognises the need to be flexible to meet changing priorities.
- Prioritises work effectively to meet deadlines and objectives.
Flexibility
- Demonstrates a flexible, positive approach to work.
- Listens to feedback and ideas from people and will take appropriate and considered action.
- Adapts well to change, adjusting priorities as required.
- Understands where a flexible approach is required.
Team working
- Remains tolerant and fair towards others, values diversity and is non-discriminatory in their actions.
- Values and makes use of the skills, knowledge and experience of others.
- Works co-operatively and supportively with others.
Please note – these are key performance outcomes to be used to recruit into the role.
Person specification
Job title: Senior Intelligence Analyst
Attributes
Experience
Essential:
- Experience of providing a professional analytical service with a high level of autonomy.
- Significant experience of using a range of analytical methods to gain insight from large volumes of data and intelligence. Experience in presenting complex analysis clearly both in writing and orally, using an appropriate style that takes account of the needs of the intended audience.
- Experience leading projects and supervising the work of other professionals.
- Experience in most of the following:
- intelligence analysis
- statistical analysis and reporting
- data science
- data development and management
- data visualisation, including geographical data
- performance measurement and reporting
Desirable:
- Management or supervisory experience.
- Developing the skills and capabilities of other team members.
- Delivering an intelligence analysis service.
- Experience in contributing analysis to published reports and research papers.
Education, qualifications and training
Essential:
- Educated to SCQF Level 9 in a subject with a significant numerical component.
- Evidence of commitment to continuing professional development.
Desirable:
- Formal Intelligence Analysis qualification.
- Masters level qualification in a relevant discipline (e.g. data science; statistics; mathematics).
Skills and knowledge
Essential:
- Excellent analytical thinking and reasoning skills.
- The ability to identify key trends in data and add value to analysis.
- Advanced data, statistical and analytical skills, with excellent IT skills.
- Experienced user of statistical, data management, data visualisation and business intelligence software for ETL and reporting purposes (e.g. R, Python, SQL, SAS, Power pivot, PowerBI,).
- Excellent data management and manipulation skills.
- Understanding of data quality issues and validation techniques.
Desirable:
- An understanding of Care Inspectorate data and strategic issues in the Care Inspectorate.
- Knowledge of relevant national data sources including open data
- Public sector/care services experience
- Code of Practice for Official Statistics Code
Key performance outcomes
Effective communication:
- Articulate and positive communicator on a 1-1 basis and in larger groups;
- Ability to express complex ideas clearly and concisely and to adapt communication to suit different audiences;
- Addresses difficult issues so people are kept well informed and do not need to resort to the grapevine.
Impact and influence:
- Adopts a collaborative approach in setting stretching but realistic deadlines and targets for themselves and their team.
- Uses evidence to influence others towards a course of action.
- Builds a network of contacts to increase circle of influence.
- Uses the aims of the corporate plan to evaluate options.
- Influences others by example and acts as a professional role model.
- Focuses on key benefits to get message across.
Improvement focus:
- Identifies gaps in performance and makes appropriate suggestions for improvements;
- Aware of trends and changes and maintains professional knowledge and skills;
- Uses knowledge and experience to gather and consolidate information in order to make appropriate changes and improvements.
- Encourages and promotes new ideas and expects others to do likewise.
Leading others:
- Delegates authority and responsibility to allow autonomous working and provides appropriate support.
- Recognises individual and collective achievement.
- Clearly demonstrates and communicates the values and goals of the Care Inspectorate.
- Ensures information and skills are shared effectively with their team.
- Coaches team members and seeks opportunities for team members to coach and mentor each other.
Objective decision making:
- Encourages and supports decisions of team members.
- Considers Care Inspectorate values in relation to impact of their decisions.
- Considers the wider context in which the Care Inspectorate operates.
- Makes effective decisions based on critical evaluation of all the relevant facts and evidence.
- Demonstrates analytical and systematic approach to problem solving;
- Ability to make appropriate and realistic judgments, based on professional expertise, relevant, up to date and verifiable information;
- Ability to analyse complex information.
Planning and organising:
- Excellent organisational skills, a good planner and manager of own and other’s work, and ability to take initiative and be highly proactive in progressing work;
- Involves others where appropriate and optimises resources to achieve desired results;
- Regularly reviews joint goals and targets and reprioritises where necessary
- Delegates effectively to others and optimises resources to achieve desired results.
- Allocates people and resources effectively by taking account of individual strengths and development needs.
- Plans for the short, medium and long term in conjunction with colleagues.
- Recognises the need to be flexible in order to meet changing priorities.
Team working:
- Provides leadership to the team, supervising, supporting and motivating team members.
- Understands different team roles and adapts to a range of roles within the team.
- Understands different team roles and adapts to a range of roles within the team.
- Contributes to the shared vision and purpose and shares this effectively;
- Works collaboratively with a wide range of teams across the Care Inspectorate.
Please note – these are key performance outcomes to be used to recruit into the role. Successful applicants will be assessed against all the performance indicators used in the Performance Development Review System once established in the role.
Person specification
Job title: Improvement Adviser (digital social care)
Attributes
Experience
Essential:
- Track record of involvement in quality improvement (QI) project/ programmes across health and social care.
- Experience of leading innovation across health and social care.
- Experience of developing and delivering learning and development to a variety of staff groups and care providers.
- Experience of working creatively with partners to develop ideas and solutions to deliver change and improvement.
Desirable:
- Experience of scrutiny and regulatory process.
- Experience of implementing digital solutions in social care settings.
Education, qualifications and training
Essential:
- Educated to SCQF level 9 (for example, Bachelors/Ordinary Degree, Graduate Diploma, Graduate Certificate, Graduate or Technical Apprenticeship, SVQ, etc) or have relevant skills and experience relevant to the post.
- Hold or be willing to work towards a recognised qualification in quality improvement.
- Commitment to own CPD.
Desirable:
- NES Scottish Improvement Leader (ScIL) or equivalent
Skills and knowledge
Essential:
- The ability to communicate with a diverse range of professional staff across the sector.
- Excellent negotiating, facilitating, influencing, and coaching skills.
- Able to think creatively to maximise the use of digital technology to improve outcomes for people.
- Knowledge and understanding of QI theory and its practical application in health and social care settings.
- Ability to set up systems to monitor improvement, analyse data and develop improvement solutions.
- Ability to develop and maintain extensive internal and external communication systems.
- Ability to work autonomously and collaborate with key stakeholders including Scottish Government, HSCPs, LAs, Health Boards and service providers in the statutory, independent, and voluntary sector.
- Excellent communicator both verbal and written, with the ability to translate plans into actions.
- IT literate, using the most effective methods to communicate and manage information.
Desirable:
- Knowledge and understanding of health/social care practice, theory, policy, and research.
- Appreciation of technology, its use and development in relation to the care sector.
- Knowledge of regulation, scrutiny, and improvement landscape.
Key performance outcomes
Quality improvement focus
Essential:
- Have a proven track record in leading QI projects/programmes and evaluating their impact.
- Demonstrate an understanding of national QI work across Scotland.
Desirable:
- Policy development
- Research activity
Planning and organising
Essential:
- Ability to prioritise effectively and achieve deadlines.
- Ability to react to changing priorities and to prioritise conflicting demands.
- Demonstrates analytical and systematic approach to problem solving.
- Demonstrates initiative, drive and determination to complete tasks and achieve objectives.
- Work is self-generated, planned, and prioritised, identifying key issues, anticipating problems, and initiating appropriate action to resolve them.
- Able to work autonomously and independently.
Impact and influence
Essential:
- Demonstrates ability to influence at all levels.
- Ability to achieve results through personal power, negotiation, persuasion, and influence.
- Ability to give credible and realistic advice, based on relevant, up to date and verifiable information.
- Demonstrates experience of being part of positive cultural change.
Effective communication
Essential:
- Excellent oral, public speaking / presentation, and written communication skills.
- Ability to draft detailed reports and guidance documents.
- Excellent interpersonal skills with the emphasis on negotiation, influence, and diplomacy.
- Experience in devising and delivering development sessions
Working in partnership
Essential:
- Work nationally and locally with a range of stakeholders.
- Ability to lead or participate in multi-disciplinary and multi-agency working groups.
Please note – these are tkey performance outcomes to be used to recruit into the role.
Person specification
Job title: Customer Support Adviser
Attributes
Experience
Essential:
- Demonstrate a successful track record within a similar role.
Desirable:
- Experience of working with external/internal contacts at all levels.
- Experience of working within the social care sector.
Education, qualifications and training
Essential:
Desirable:
- NVQ/SVQ level 2 or 3 in Customer Service or Call Handling.
Skills and knowledge
Essential:
- Excellent communication skills.
- Excellent verbal communication techniques in order to draw out and gather correct information and gain confidence from caller.
- Knowledge of customer service principles and practice.
- Listening skills.
- Problem solving skills.
- Good data entry/keyboard skills
- Ability to work on own initiative and prioritisation of workload.
- Ability to meet deadlines.
- Ability to use own judgement within identified boundaries.
- Ability to remain professional even when dealing with difficult or confrontational callers.
Key performance outcomes
Effective communication:
- Portrays a positive image of the Care Inspectorate when communicating both inside the organisation and externally.
- Selects appropriate communication, style and methods depending on the needs and abilities of the audience.
- Listens actively to people, questions and checks understanding.
Planning and organising:
- Uses a systematic approach to make efficient use of time and manage workload.
- Recognises the need to be flexible in order to meet changing priorities.
- Prioritises work effectively to meet deadlines and objectives.
Flexibility:
- Demonstrates a flexible, positive approach to work.
- Listens to feedback and ideas from people and will take appropriate and considered action.
- Adapts well to change, adjusting priorities as required.
- Is able to work confidently within a changing environment.
Team working:
- Remains tolerant and fair towards others, values diversity and is non-discriminatory in their actions.
- Values and makes use of the skills, knowledge and experience of others.
- Works co-operatively and supportively with others.
Personal accountability and responsibility:
- Takes responsibility for decisions and actions taken.
- Maintains a high standard of work and actively seeks out continuous improvement.
- Demonstrates initiative within own area of expertise.
- Takes responsibility for identifying and addressing areas of personal and professional development.
Please note – these are key performance outcomes to be used to recruit into the role.
Person specification
Job title: Service Manager Early Learning and Childcare
Attributes
Experience
Essential:
- Experience of managing and delivering scrutiny and assurance activity.
- Experience of managing scrutiny and assurance teams operationally.
- Direct experience of supporting improvement and building capacity through self-evaluation.
- Highly skilled and experienced in the ‘art of inspection’.
- Experience of planning scrutiny and assurance programmes, including those delivered in partnership with others.
- Significant experience in social work/social care in children’s services.
- Experience of stakeholder engagement at both a strategic and operational level, particularly during the inspection process, delivering feedback and dealing with challenges to the inspection processes and findings.
- Experience in quality assurance, self-evaluation, performance management and the recruitment, training, development and support of staff.
- Significant experience operational scrutiny activity and professional regulatory practice within the health and social care, or other relevant sectors.
- Demonstrable evidence of embedding sustainable transformational change.
Desirable:
- Direct experience of developing and applying quality frameworks to support self-evaluation, scrutiny and improvement.
Education, qualifications and training
Essential:
- Educated to degree level or equivalent.
- Appropriate professional qualification.
- Commitment to own CPD.
- A qualification in quality management/ scrutiny and improvement such as EFQM and PSIF.
Skills and knowledge
Essential:
- The ability to provide leadership and direction to a diverse, multi-disciplinary team of professional staff.
- Demonstrate significant knowledge and direct first hand experience of inspection/regulation of care in a children’s setting.
- Demonstrate significant skills and knowledge of quality assuring inspection processes and reports.
- Demonstrate commitment to the principles of the Public Service Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 and the principles of better regulation.
- Be adept at challenging traditional thinking in a positive and constructive way.
- Excellent communicator, both verbally and in written form.
- Politically astute.
- Ability to translate plans into action.
- Excellent negotiation and influencing skills.
- Demonstrate broad knowledge of working with inspection/regulation of care.
- Knowledge of trends and changes within social work and social care with an understanding of Equality and Diversity issues.
- IT literate, using the most effective methods to communicate and manage information.
Desirable:
- Knowledge and understanding of health/social care practice, theory, policy and research.
- Demonstrate understanding of corporate social responsibility, whereby social and environmental concerns are voluntarily integrated to business operations and stakeholder interaction.
- Understanding of, and ability to demonstrate, the management of complex projects.
Key performance outcomes
Leading others
Essential:
- Ability to provide credible and authentic professional leadership, with a clear sense of purpose and direction to effectively lead a key professional function within the Care Inspectorate.
- Ability to effectively deploy staff and other resources to achieve performance objectives.
- Ensure that staff working in inspection in respect of children’s services conduct themselves in accordance with the highest standards of integrity, probity and openness through the implementation of robust corporate governance.
- Demonstrate ability to provide leadership and strategic management direction for multi disciplinary, professional teams and bring together groups from different disciplines/bodies.
Management of resources
Essential:
- Ability to bring together the overall work of a multi-disciplinary team of staff.
- Ability to manage resources in achievement of the Care Inspectorate’s objectives.
- Ability to bring together the overall work of a team of staff, determining the “tone” for a significant area of the organisation’s work and promoting a corporate vision.
- Ability to manage resources in achievement of the Care Inspectorate’s objectives.
Desirable:
- Ability to drive continuous improvement and manage business planning and performance processes.
Effective communication
Essential:
- Articulate and positive communicator both in verbal and written communication skills.
- Ability to engage, influence and lead the development of a wide range of key stakeholder relationships, both internally and externally.
Desirable:
- The ability to build and guide key stakeholder strategies and manage relationships to secure or improve delivery of key programme or service outputs.
Impact and influence
Essential:
- Evidence of building positive relationships, engaging and collaborating effectively with others internally and externally.
- Demonstrate personal resilience, being able to work flexibly under to deliver tangible results.
- Demonstrates ability to influence at all levels.
- Ability to promote, lead and implement strategies and change programmes to improve the development and quality of services.
- Evidence of building positive relationships, engaging and collaborating effectively with others internally and externally.
- Demonstrates personal resilience, being able to work flexibly under pressure with stamina and tenacity to deliver results.
Desirable:
- A proven track record of promoting, leading and implementing strategies and change programmes to improve the development and quality of services
- Ability to take account of wider political and organisational sensitivities to deliver strategic objectives.
Objective decision making
Essential:
- The ability to assist the Chief Inspector Early Learning and Childcare Services to set, in consultation with others, the overall agenda, long term objectives and performance standards for the Directorate.
- Demonstrate analytical and systematic approach to problem solving.
- Ability to make appropriate and realistic judgments, based on relevant, up to date and verifiable information.
- The ability to take responsibility for difficult decisions and to remain resilient against possible criticism.
Please note – these are key performance outcomes to be used to recruit into the role. Successful applicants will be assessed against all the performance indicators used in the Performance Development Review System once established in the role.
Person specification
Job title: Executive Personal Assistant (PA)
Attributes
Experience
Essential:
- Extensivesecretarial/business support
- Experience of interpreting the business conducted at meetings and producing accurateminutestoreflectdiscussionand
- Experienceofproviding secretarial/business support at senior management level.
- Experienceofpreparingbasicreportsfor submission to senior members of staff.
Desirable:
- Ability to develop and produce correspondence and emails on behalf of senior executives.
Education, qualifications and training
Essential:
- Educated to Standard Grade level or equivalent.
Desirable:
- Hold a relevant qualification in administration, and/or secretarial studies e.g. HNC/D or equivalent.
Skills and knowledge
Essential:
- Excellent communication and negotiation
- Excellent organisational, planning and decision making skills.
- Ability to manage conflicting priorities and work to tight deadlines/plan and prioritise workloads.
- Experience of developing processes and procedures.
- Good working knowledge of IT packages including Microsoft Applications and database input.
- Ability to translate plans into action.
Key performance outcomes
Effective communication
Essential:
- Ability to prepare written communication to a high
- Ability to express ideas clearly and concisely and to adapt communication to suit different audiences.
- Ability to form constructive working relationships with people at all levels in the organisation.
- Regularly communicates with and ensures they are accessible to colleagues and key contacts.
- Ability to communicate decisions to colleagues and key contacts.
Objective decision making
Essential:
- Demonstrates ananalytical and systematic approach to problem solving.
- Encourages and supports decisions of colleagues and key contacts.
- Considers Care Inspectorate values in relation to the impact of their decisions.
- Considers the wider context in which the Care Inspectorate operates.
Desirable:
- Ability to expressand present complex information.
Planning and organising
Essential:
- Ability to react to changing priorities and manage conflicting demands.
- Ability to forward plan and prevent any operational difficulties.
- Uses a systematic approach to make efficient use of time and manage workload.
- Recognises the need to be flexible in order to meet changing priorities.
- Follows directions and procedures.
Flexibility
Essential:
- Demonstrates a flexible, positive approach to work.
- Listens to feedback and ideas from people and will take appropriate and considered action.
- Adapts well to change, adjusting priorities as required.
- Ability to apply skills flexibly as required.
Personal accountability and responsibility
Essential:
- Contributes to the development of operational processes and systems.
- Demonstrate initiative, drive and determination to complete tasks and achieve objectives.
- Improve the development and quality of services.
- Takes responsibility for decisions and actions taken.
- Maintains a high standard of work and actively seeks out continuous improvement.
- Demonstrates initiative within own area of expertise.
- Takes responsibility for identifying and addressing areas of personal and professional development.
Please note – these are key performance outcomes to be used to recruit into the role.
Subcategories
Inspector - Early Learning and Childcare (ELC)
The early learning and childcare expansion…
Role: Inspector - Early Learning and Childcare (ELC)
Location: Forth Valley, Borders, Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, Edinburgh & Glasgow
Salary: £31,083 - £39,069 plus excellent benefits
Hours: 140 hours to be worked over a 4-week period
Contract: Permanent or 2-year secondment (would be considered)
Join us and make a difference – for you, for everyone
It’s our job to ensure care for everyone, everywhere in Scotland is as good as it can be. If you are as passionate about high-quality care as we are, and you’re experienced in your field, we’d love to hear from you.
About us
As a national scrutiny body that supports improvement. We inspect care services and partnerships across Scotland, report on the quality of care people experience, and support improvements in services to facilitate improvements in outcomes for people.
We inspect care services individually. We also work with other scrutiny bodies to inspect the social care and social work services people are experiencing in local areas.
We champion high-quality care whenever we encounter it across the thousands of inspections, we carry out each year, and we work closely with all care providers to support them to improve all the time. We collaborate with other organisations too, supporting improvement across public services. Our work plays a big role in reducing health and social inequalities between people and communities.
We are looking for talented people to join us in making a difference - specialists who understand how to put people’s needs, rights and choices at the heart of delivering social services – and how to lead improvement too. Our 600 staff work with services across the public, voluntary and private sectors. We have offices across Scotland and many of our staff work from home.
About you
Whether early or established in your career, you will share our determination that care, social work and justice services should work well for people – every time. You’ll be confident about what good-quality care looks like and how to deliver it. You’ll be good at analysing information and evidence. You will have excellent writing skills for narrative inspection reports that are clear, concise and focused on outcomes. You will be confident in working with a wide range of people and at supporting and advising on improvement.
You’ll currently be working, or have significant experience in, social care, social work, health, children’s services, early learning, child protection, or community learning and development. You will be registered or eligible to register with a professional body like the SSSC, NMC or GTC.
About the role
Our care inspectors work with care services: childminders, nurseries, care homes, care at home, housing support and a host of other specialist services. A specialist in your field, you may have helped lead a service and have a strong track record in delivering quality. You’ll be adept at leading improvement and influencing others. You will work with people experiencing care, and care service providers, managers and staff.
Why join us?
We strive to be a great employer, knowing that competitive salary, leave and pension schemes are only part of that. We pride ourselves on the values we hold, person-centred; fairness; respect; efficiency and integrity - all supported with a culture of care and kindness.
We believe in collective leadership and innovation. You’ll have a lot of autonomy to manage your own work and use the professional skills you’ve honed during your career – but in new ways. Starting on day one, our learning and development support will help you become confident in the craft of scrutiny and in supporting improvement. Because a lot of your role is about sharing effective practice across Scotland, the impact you can have on experiences and outcomes for people is significant. You will draw on management and leadership skills you’ve developed in the past.
We’re proud to be a progressive, supportive employer – we’re happy to talk about flexible working with you and we’re members of the Disability Confident Scheme, aiming to make the most of the talents disabled people can bring to the workplace.
New appointments will normally be placed on the minimum grade for the role; a higher starting salary may be offered in exceptional circumstances only.
ELC expansion
The Scottish Government is committed to expanding the provision of funded Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) from 600 hours to 1140 hours per year by 2020. The expansion of ELC is aimed to support the reduction in the poverty-related attainment gap and improve long term outcomes for children and families.
Due to the ELC expansion programme we are looking for 7 further ELC Inspectors in addition to the “business as usual” Inspector campaign launched recently.
Principles and aims
The priority for the expansion to 1140 hours is to improve children's outcomes and close the poverty-related attainment gap. In addition, the expansion aims to support parents into work, study or training. The Scottish Government's four principles of the ELC expansion are: quality, flexibility, affordability, and accessibility.
The Scottish Government has stated that quality is 'at the heart' of the expansion and that achieving a high-quality ELC experience for children is a key objective.
Use and provision
A 2018 survey found that the main reason why parents use funded ELC is that they consider it beneficial for their child's learning and development. In addition, parents reported using the funded hours to either work, increase the number of hours they work, or look for work.
Funded ELC in Scotland is delivered by a wide range of providers including nurseries, crèches and playgroups, from across the public, private and third sectors. A small number of childminders also deliver funded ELC, but the Scottish Government hopes this number will increase under the expansion to 1140 hours.
Criteria to apply
- We require you to hold a relevant qualification (minimum SCQF Level 9), register with either the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) or any other relevant professional body and undertake PVG checks.
- You must also be prepared to do a Professional Development Award in Scrutiny and Improvement (Social Services) at SCQF level 10 with appropriate support from the organisation.
- You will have a minimum of three years recent and demonstrable management experience in a relevant field. You must also be willing to travel with overnight stays as required.
Before you apply
- Please contact the relevant body directly to resolve any queries you have regarding registration or eligible qualifications for registration (SSSC, NMC and so on) before submitting your application.
- For an informal chat about the job role, please contact (Who?) You or Kim Connolly, Team Manager on 07766133161
- For all other queries, please contact Human Resources at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
To apply
- If you are interested, please see the minimum criteria to apply as an Inspector and the specific guidance and directions to apply. Thereafter, click on the gateway questions link to apply.
- Your completed application form (campaign number C39 only forms) and equal opportunities form should be returned to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.no later than Monday, 14 October 2019 at 8.00am.
- We anticipate that selection days will take place in the week commencing Monday, 18 November 2019.