Barbara, Service Manager
Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council

Before qualifying as a social worker, I was a police officer. When I originally came to the council, I was a generic social worker for a while, before becoming a team manager. I then specialised in children services including child protection. After that I became training and development manager, before progressing to manage the provider services for adults and older people. Finally, I became service manager with responsibility for assessment and provision.

I am currently responsible for two of the three areas of the borough and my job involves the following: financial management; human resources and performance mangement; ensuring the service works within legislation and council/department policies and procedures; management of the carers grant; playing a part on them integrated health and social care management team.

A typical day might include: monitoring attendance of all those in my teams; looking at progress within current action plans; working on the modernising care management project or the new technologies project; end of year finance, invoicing, budget monitoring and grant monitoring; dealing with health and safety issues; interviewing staff about performance and absence; staff professional supervision; dealing with correspondence, complaints and compliments; attending meetings such as divisional management team, updates with partner agencies, or the carers management committee; dealing with vulnerable adult abuse investigations; recruitment and selection of staff; dealing with disciplinary and grievance proceedings; providing advice, direction and support to my management team.

To do the job you need a social work qualification, plus management experience and/or qualification, an understanding of legislation and guidance relating to social care, good communication skills, budget management skills and an ability to see and make links with partner organisations.

The thing I love best about the job is the huge variety of work. The most challenging thing is meeting all the demands, for example, keeping to action plans when a new priority comes along.