Independent Reviewing Officer en Leicestershire County Council

Organisation: Leicestershire County Council 

Work Location: County Hall Glenfield LE3 8RA / Area offices / ROA meetings held across the county/country depending on where the child is residing / working from home

Worker Category: Hybrid Worker

Salary: Grade 13 (£49,221 - £53,826) per annum (Pro rata for part time)

Working Hours: 37 hours per week

Contract Type: Permanent

Closing Date: 21 September 2025

Interview Date(s): 01 October 2025

About the Role

We are currently recruiting for an Independent Reviewing Officer to support children and young people in care through chairing review of arrangements meetings, overseeing quality of care planning, and advocating for young people’s needs. This role will focus on review of arrangements meetings; however, the post holder may be required to also chair Child Protection Conferences. You will be joining a stable and committed team of independent reviewing officers who champion the needs of children and young people across Leicestershire. 

This post is the subject of a Social Work Qualification, Social Work England registration and an enhanced DBS check for a regulated activity.

About You

To apply for this post, you must respond to and evidence the following 7 essential criteria within your personal statement. This should be no more than 1,000 words.

• You will need to be a qualified Social Worker and have management experience, working at Grade 12 or above, and a strong statutory childcare and child protection background.
• You will be passionate about delivering the highest standard of care to our children and recognise the significant role that the Independent Reviewing Officer / Child Protection Conference Chairs play in supporting operational colleagues in driving forward quality plans and preventing drift and delay.
• You will have strong skills in time management, working effectively and flexibly to meet deadlines, and be a strong communicator.
• You will be able to chair complex meetings and present information both verbally and in reports to different groups including children, political leader’s senior managers and the wider workforce.
• You will be able to give confidence to others, lead and inspire others, and be ambitious to deliver the department’s ambition to remain outstanding.
• You will be performance driven with a keen eye for data and a proactive approach to quality assurance.
• You will be able to support and challenge your colleagues to benefit our children, with their voice central to your work.

You must also have an understanding of, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion. 

In addition, we expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the interview process.

Reasonable adjustments will be considered for applicants with a disability.

Leicestershire Children and Families Services 

In all service areas, you are expected to work closely with colleagues across team and agency boundaries to ensure that families get the most appropriate level of support. Staff workloads are manageable and are monitored and managed closely. Managers and staff all have regular monthly supervision, and you will be supported in your practice by an experienced management team.

As an organisation, we are committed to a strong and skilled workforce that provides high-quality services to the children and families of Leicestershire, following our relationship-based Signs of Safety practice approach.

We are committed to doing our very best for vulnerable children and families, working to make a positive impact on their lives so they can achieve their potential and flourish.

We are proud of our continuous improvement plan - ‘Achieving Excellence through Purposeful Practice’, which sets out our key values, behaviours and ambitions. We have embedded the Signs of Safety approach throughout our services, and this approach mirrors our values of Aspiration, Being Curious, and Collaboration. We are focused on working with families and the networks of family, friends, and professionals around children, to work in collaboration to achieve shared goals.

We are committed to our vision of becoming a trauma-informed, responsive department where we believe we are “stronger together”. Our culture is one of partnership, where we look for solutions and recognise the potential impact of trauma on the children and families we work with and on our staff. We will strive to create a safe, compassionate, healing environment demonstrated through relationships based on trust, respect, hope, and empathy. We will achieve this through a spirit of curiosity, by nurturing connections through relationships, making a deliberate effort to know and understand people, and by providing hope for growth and recovery.

We support and empower our staff to be the best that they can be. We will give you the support and resources that you need to work in collaboration with children and families.

We want all our staff to be inspired to go the extra mile. We are doing our best to create a culture where practice excellence can flourish. We want to learn from what works, as much, if not more, than from when things go badly. We are ambitious to create a true learning organisation, so …

• We run several conferences each year for staff to come together, reflect and learn.
• Every team sets aside time for team learning each month.
• You will receive consistent, regular, and reflective supervision, including group supervision support.
• Twice a year, our senior leaders take a week out and spend time with Social Workers, observing practice and talking to young people, parents, and carers about their experience of services.
• All Social Work England-registered workers have three extra Continuous Professional Development days each year.
• Our highly valued training offer supports career progression and includes Practice Educator Awards and Aspiring Managers Program.
• We have an experienced team dedicated to supporting practice excellence.
• Our Practice Development Group is well-established for practitioners to collaborate on practice development.
• We have a Critical Incident Response service for staff, which provides independent therapeutic support within 48 hours.
• We have an excellent Wellbeing Service providing specific support to staff when needed but also offers events throughout the year.

For further information, please visit:

• Social Worker benefits

For information on our approach to the recruitment of ex-offenders, please see our policy statement.

Interested in Flexible Working?

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual’s personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below. This may include requests for term-time working, part-time hours, compressed hours, flexible start and finish times, home/remote working, etc. 

Every role within the Council has a defined working style which determines where they can work. The worker category applicable to this post is detailed in the above advert. You can find out more about our worker categories in the Our Working Styles page on our career site. 

For more information or an informal discussion, please contact:

Kara Walne or Rebecca Peters – Safeguarding & Improvement Managers

[email protected]

[email protected]

How to Apply

Leicestershire County Council is an inclusive organisation which is on a journey to embed and celebrate equality, diversity, and inclusion at every level. We warmly welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, as having a diverse workforce with different perspectives and ideas is fundamental to our values and enriches the services, we offer our communities. We particularly welcome applicants from Ethnically Diverse and LGBTQ+ communities and people with disabilities to create a balanced workforce and one that reflects the communities we serve. Applicants with a disability who meet the criteria listed in the ‘About You’ section above will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Employer Scheme.

To apply for this job, please click on the apply button. You will need to upload a supporting statement as part of your application which explains how you meet the criteria listed in the ‘About You’ section above. For more information, see the How to Apply section on our career site.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post or you want to request an application pack in an alternative format, please contact our Employee Service Centre by telephoning 0300 3030222 (select option 2) or raising a ticket via our online portal: https://emss.org.uk/support. 

By applying for this post, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.

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