Legal Services Manager - Children and Education Team

Legal Services Manager - Children and Education Team

Permanent, Full Time

Up to £82,992 per annum

Location: Chelmsford

Working Style: Anywhere worker

Closing Date: 22nd May 2024

This role has a hybrid working arrangement. We will expect you to attend our Chelmsford offices approximately 2 days per week. There may also be a requirement to visit other sites throughout the operational area, as required.

The Opportunity

Essex County Council's children's services were recognised as 'outstanding' by Ofsted in 2018 and 2023. Our team of Children and Education lawyers has been busy supporting the service. There's lots of challenging and innovative work in one of the largest teams in the country.

Essex County Council (ECC) is a diverse and large organisation that strives for excellence and delivers an outstanding service for residents across Essex. At ECC's in-house legal service, ELS, we pride ourselves on providing a comprehensive legal service to the Council - most of our work is done in-house. We value the people who work for us and provide a supportive working environment, where people work hard to do their best for Essex. The work can be demanding and we expect resilience but our senior leaders are committed to ensuring that ELS is a place where people want to stay.

We're looking for someone senior who can support our lawyers to deliver outstanding legal advice and support our ethos. This post is focused on leading a team of legal professionals but with a broader role, as part of the ELS leadership team, the role has a strong voice in the running of the service.

We're looking for someone with excellent technical legal skills and relevant experience who can quickly pick things up and manage a team of specialists within the Children and Education legal team.

They will need to be able to operate effectively in a complex politically-led organisation. Their influencing skills will be critical in order to articulate options and risks when advising Senior Leaders and Councillors.

To read more about us please visit: Corporate Services

Accountabilities

• Lead, manage and motivate a team of advocates, lawyers, paralegals and caseworkers to provide exemplary legal advice to internal stakeholders within ECC and external customers.
• Responsible for the provision of advice to the Council on public childcare matters including relevant judicial reviews.
• Accountable for the provision of high quality advice and interpretation to clients to underpin and inform decision making.
• Accountable for providing legal services to support different functions within the Council, in order to, protect and mitigate potential legal risks for ECC.
• Responsible for contributing to business development targets across the team.
• Develop and maximise opportunities to attract external legal work across the breadth of different sectors with whom ECC collaborates in support of ECC strategic aims and objectives to build new revenue streams.
• Accountable for ensuring professional conduct and governance across the Council to meet Corporate and Statutory responsibilities and requirements.
• Accountable for driving compliance with the Lexcel standard and preparing the service for renewal of its Lexcel accreditation.
• Work collaboratively with stakeholders and partners to ensure solutions are robust, providing direction and guidance to achieve positive outcomes.
• Specific individual and shared targets and objectives are defined annually within the performance management framework.

The Experience You Will Bring

• Qualified solicitor or barrister or legal executive with full practising certificate and at least 5 years' post qualification experience.
• Expert knowledge and experience in childcare law, with a local government focus e.g. complex care proceedings, PLO, adoption, judicial review, supervision orders, emergency protection, secure accommodation, special guardianship.
• Experience of working with senior leaders, Directors, Executive Directors and other key stakeholders
• Knowledge and understanding of providing legal advice in a public sector setting
• Experience of leading a team of qualified professionals
• Persuasion and influencing skills
• Evidence of creativity in exploring business opportunities

Pay and Reward

You'll also have access to the MyReward, a unique platform for Essex County Council employees to take advantage of including:

• Healthcare and Dental Plans at corporate rates
• Discounts and benefits at many local and national outlets including supermarkets, shopping, restaurants, technology purchases and holidays
• Discounts across Essex County Council's businesses, including Country Park Membership, ACL and more
• Generous holiday and special leave allowances (including the option to purchase extra holiday)
• Local Government Pension Scheme.
• Life Assurance of three times annual salary
• Employee wellbeing and counselling
• Travel discounts and season ticket loans
• Learning and Development opportunities/coaching & mentoring
• Payment of professional fees for approved professions
• Eye care vouchers
• Lease car scheme (dependent on business needs).

You can read more here:

Interviews will be held in person at Seax House, Chelmsford 13^th and 14^th June 2024.

Why Essex? Essex County Council has a location to be proud of. Our 1,300 square miles stretch from Constable Country to the Thames Estuary, from the dynamic M11 corridor to the traditional seaside resorts of Clacton and Walton on the Naze. England's oldest city, Colchester, and two of its newest towns - Basildon and Harlow - are right here. Along with the City of Chelmsford, the county town, they form our major population centres. It means real choice and makes Essex the ideal place for your career. Read more about us.

Essex County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We're committed to interview all disabled applicants who choose to apply under our Job Interview Scheme if they meet the minimum requirements of the job. Please speak to our Recruiters if you require any reasonable adjustments during the process.

We're also committed to interview all veterans and care leavers, who meet the minimum requirements of the role for which they are applying.

What you should do next

If you are interested in finding out more about this role, we would love to hear from you. Please apply via the Working for Essex website.

As part of employment with Essex County Council (ECC) should your role require a DBS check you will be required to register with the DBS update service. The DBS update service ensures all registered DBS certificates are kept up to date and allows authorised parties to view the status of your certificate. This is an annual subscription, and you will be responsible for ensuring this is maintained. For further information on the DBS update service please go to

Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

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If you have queries on this role or require anything further, please email #####

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