JOB DESCRIPTION
TITLE:
Director of Services
SALARY:
£50,000
REPORTS TO:
Deputy Chief Executive
HOURS OF WORK:
37.5 hours
DIRECT REPORTS:
4 X Heads of Service Delivery and Development,
Services Administrator,
INDIRECT REPORTS: c. 100 people across the Services Directorate
Budget:
£4 Million (Approx)
Overview
Pact is a highly respected independent charity. We work across England and Wales to
develop and deliver a range of innovative services, providing practical and emotional
support to prisoners, ex-prisoners, their children and families. We enable active community
engagement in criminal justice work through facilitating volunteering. Our work is founded
on core values, the first of which is a belief in the innate dignity of every human being.
Our focus is on human relationships, family and community. We are committed to
facilitating service user participation, to evidence-based practice, and to achieving high
standards of quality in all that we do. We support people to make a fresh start, to achieve
outcomes that are meaningful to them, and to live fulfilled, crime free lives.
Job purpose
As a key member of the Senior Leadership Team, you will be responsible for the operational
delivery, and continued development and growth of consistently high quality, costeffective, person-centred services. You will ensure that these remain grounded in Pact’s
charitable mission, ethos and values, and informed by our growing evidence base, our
service users, staff feedback and relevant criminal justice and sociological theories.
You will lead and manage Pact’s range of prison, court and community-based services for
prisoners, ex-offenders, and the children and families of offenders, and national online and
telephone based services. You will support our Heads of Service Delivery and Development
to deliver exceptional services; leading and inspiring our mixed workforce of paid
professional staff and well-trained volunteers. You will work strategically to develop
commissionable integrated services between prisons and communities, ensuring that we
can demonstrate clear and meaningful outcomes for our own learning, and deliver results.
You will be an Ambassador for Pact’s values and mission, building positive relationships with
stakeholders, and alliances and partnerships to deliver responsive joined-up services. You
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will lead on the performance management of existing services; design and development
of new services; and promoting and encouraging active service user participation. You will
work closely with our Business Development Team, to ensure that we provide high quality
feedback to our commissioners and funders and to secure the funds and resources we
need to support and grow our services in a sustainable way.
KEY TASKS, DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES:
Senior Leadership Team
As a member of the Senior Leadership Team for Pact Group, you will play a key role in
developing and evolving our strategy, and in shaping our work as we move into the next
phase of growth and development.
Organisational Management
•
To lead Pact’s Services team, bringing together regional Heads of Service Delivery and
Development, to ensure Pact delivers high quality, effective services to achieve
measurable outcomes in response to the needs of our service users.
•
To be the Senior Leadership team lead on service practice and quality. Proactively
building own knowledge, disseminating relevant information to stakeholders and
providing specialist input to policy and practice development.
•
Lead change and build resilience personally and within own teams and consistently
role model appropriate behaviours within and external to the organisation.
•
To represent Pact at internal and external meetings on a national basis as appropriate,
with commissioners, Prison Governors, Officials and other stakeholders.
•
Provide regular briefings and reports for CEO, DCEO and Board of Trustees.
•
Contribute to the marketing and promotion of Pact, working to raise the profile of
Pact’s Services with stakeholders and the media, where appropriate.
•
Work with the Director of HR and Workforce Development to ensure we offer excellent
training and support for our services teams.
Service Quality, Impact and Compliance
• To lead in the development of Pact’s services portfolio and our ‘hybrid’ multi-disciplinary
professional practice which spans the boundaries between criminal justice, advice and
guidance, Visitors’ centre management, case-work, children’s play services,
‘mentoring’ and befriending, relationship and parenting education, volunteer
management, and other disciplines.
•
Responsible for the ‘within budget’ delivery, quality and compliance of all Pact
services
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•
Ensure that Pact’s quality assurance processes are fit for purpose for our services,
ensuring compliance with prison security requirements, legal responsibilities, and
contractual requirements and actively promoting Pact’s own standards and
operational policies and procedures, including those relating to Health and Safety,
Safer Working and Staff Welfare.
•
Manage and oversee the performance of Pact services, ensuring performance
requirements are clearly understood, monitored and reviewed and to support Heads
of Service Delivery and Development to deliver strategies to remedy underperformance of individual services where they occur.
•
Set up and monitor continuous improvement and evaluate performance across Pact
services, ensuing services are reviewed and remain responsive to need and that we
have the necessary evidence and data required for effective oversight, governance,
planning and development.
•
Ensure that safeguarding systems and procedures are in place and recognised as
everyone’s responsibility and that Pact’s policies, procedures and systems are fully
complied with and monitored.
•
Act as national designated safeguarding officer for children and adults at risk, including
providing on call weekend and evening cover alongside colleagues.
•
To hold overall budgetary responsibility for Pact service budgets and manage and
control agreed budgets, working closely with the Heads of Services Delivery and
Development and the finance team to contribute to budget setting, monitoring spend
against forecasts and taking action on identified variance.
•
To ensure that Risk Assessment/Risk Management policies, procedures and practice are
fully adhered to and embedded in practice, and remain fit for purpose as the
organisation develops its work in secure environments and with people who have
offended and their children and families, in a variety of settings.
•
To ensure that our evolving work with service users who pose a higher risk of harm to the
public (MAPPA) conforms to best practice, and to develop our relationship with the
National Probation Service, Circles UK and other Circles and SOTP providers.
Lead, develop, engage and motivate our Services team
• Provide leadership to the Services team by operating with an open, facilitative
management style that engages individuals to work to the best of their ability for
the benefit of prisoners and their families.
•
Support, supervise and develop all direct reports so that they are inspired and
enabled to achieve excellence and encouraged to provide feedback and
contribute to the shaping of the organisation, and in particular, model a
management style that encourages those with line management responsibilities to
do the same.
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•
Work collaboratively with the HR and Workforce Development Team to recruit,
induct and train paid staff, volunteers and students, working proactively to provide
ongoing support, training and development opportunities.
•
Develop and share expertise in staff and volunteer management and the use of
student placements across Pact’s core services, and provide advice and guidance
on good practice for our services team.
Develop and mobilise services
•
Working with the Development Team, to be responsible for the mobilisation of new
services, and services which transfer into Pact’s management following competitive
tenders, mergers or successful grants.
•
Develop and encourage innovation and excellence across Pact’s services,
including establishing Pact’s overarching Services Plan and motivating, supporting
and assisting Heads of Service Delivery and Development to develop and deliver
effective service plans.
•
To lead Pact-wide service development, including the development and
implementation of policies, processes and systems and developing new service
models.
•
Support Development activity by contributing specialist knowledge to bids,
identifying available funding streams and developing service models and bid
content where required.
Contract and Grant Compliance and Stakeholder Management
•
To account manage agreed national contracts, to ensure funder returns are
reviewed and returned.
•
Manage performance of Pact national services and support Heads of Service
Delivery and Development in management of local and regional services in line with
contract/grant requirements, ensuring compliance is maintained and reporting is
undertaken to a high quality, escalating variances and over/under performance on
a monthly basis or as requested.
•
Ensure Heads of Service Delivery and Development are fully briefed on the terms of
nationally managed funding agreements/contracts in order that contracted
services are legally and contractually compliant and provided to the highest
possible standards.
•
Build relationships with key national stakeholders, negotiating and securing
agreements/SLAs and ensuring stakeholders are kept up to date with service activity
and progress in line with local arrangements.
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•
Liaise with Finance and Development to ensure payments are received promptly
and that relevant contract extension discussions are undertaken in a timely fashion,
taking action and escalating where appropriate.
The Prison Advice & Care Trust is a developing organisation and consequently this job
description will be reviewed and duties may change over time
Our Standards
Equal Opportunities: pact has a strong commitment to achieving equality of opportunity and
expects all employees to implement and promote its policy in their own work.
Service User Participation: People who use our services are at the heart of everything we
do. We strive for a culture in which prisoners, ex-offenders and their families are listened to,
their opinions are respected and they are actively involved in decision making which leads
to change. This change can be in prisoners, ex-offenders and their families (skills, knowledge,
development or attitude), the services they get and use and the wider society.
Health and Safety: Pact is committed to a healthy and safe working environment and
expects all its employees to co-operate with pact to implement and promote its policy in all
aspects of their work.
Conduct: Pact staff are required to conduct themselves in a lawful, professional, courteous
and respectful manner, in accordance with the charity’s values and ethos. Our work within
secure establishments, with ex-offenders in the community, and with children and adults with
multiple and complex needs, requires all staff to operate at all times with due regard to
security, safeguarding and protecting children, public protection, and professional
boundaries. All staff are required to conform with policies and procedures detailed in the
pact handbooks, and as required by the Ministry of Justice and National Offender
Management Service, and local rules which may be in force at individual prisons. Staff are
also required to comply with detailed policies and guidance regarding confidentiality, Data
Security and use of ICT (Information and Communication Technology), and maintaining
privacy of staff and service users. Staff are required to ensure that they maintain an up to
date awareness of relevant policies and procedures, and to take a positive approach to
their own learning and development.
Pact is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people,
and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
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PERSON SPECIFICATION: DIRECTOR OF SERVICES
ESSENTIAL SHORTLISTING CRITERIA:
EDUCATION &
QUALIFICATIONS
1. Degree or equivalent work-based experience at a
middle or senior management level
2. Relevant professional qualification
EXPERIENCE
& KNOWLEDGE
1. Experience of providing effective operational
management of diverse services over a wide
geographical area including regular performance
reviews/evaluation, benchmarking and quality
assurance of those services.
2. Demonstrable understanding of how to develop and
deliver responsive professional services in custody and
community to (i)reduce the risk of re-offending
(including amongst high risk groups)(ii) build family
resilience and strengthen relationship skills (iii)
safeguard children and adults (iv) assess needs and
develop person centred solutions.
3. Experience of having successfully developed,
managed and implemented organisational change
programmes. In particular demonstrate the ability to
remodel the delivery of services in pursuit of continuous
service improvement aligned with business priorities.
4. A strong grasp of Desistance theories and Attachment
theory, and the capability to articulate and apply to
service delivery practice and the design and
evaluation of interventions. (Desirable)
5. A broad-based understanding and knowledge of
public sector services for vulnerable adults, including
offenders, and for children and families.
6. Demonstrable people management experience using a
range of formal and informal systems, processes and
approaches to support staff to deliver their best.
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7. An understanding of prison-based and/or through the
gate services targeted at prisoners, their families and/or
other vulnerable groups
8. A robust understanding of performance management of contracts
and SLAs, including contractual procedures.
9. Capable of contributing to successful tenders within a competitive
tendering framework. (Desirable)
10. Experience of case management. (Desirable)
SKILLS/ABILITIES
1. Capable of delivering and developing Pact’s strategic
objectives for prison and community-based services.
2. Capable of managing and controlling multiple budgets
and resources.
3. Excellent oral and written communication
4. Excellent interpersonal skills: networking, rapport
building and active listening
5. Strong leadership skills, with the ability to inspire and
engage staff teams and volunteers
6. Organisational sensitivity; able to perceive the impact
of a changing external environment , and of the
impact of internal changes on the organisation, its
service users and stakeholders
7. Analytical and problem-solving skills
8. Capability to design and deliver training for practitioners
and group-work interventions/courses. (Desirable)
9. Capability to monitor and evaluate the impact of our
services, and to present the findings to a range of
audiences using a variety of methods including formal
reports, briefings and presentations.
10. Proficient user of ICT
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Leadership
Imperatives
Beliefs, Attitudes
and Behaviours
1. Ability to work effectively in a complex ‘political’
environment building successful working relationships
across organisational, professional and operational
boundaries with key stakeholders.
2. An authentic and demonstrable commitment to the
Vision, Mission and Values of Pact.
3. A sensitivity to and respect for the core ethos and
values of Pact as a charity which was created and is
sustained by the Catholic Christian Community in
England and Wales, and the ability to relate with
empathy and sensitivity to those within Pact’s diverse
workforce and supporter base who are motivated by
Christian belief, including Catholic Social Teaching, or
by others faiths.
4. A demonstrable commitment to Pact’s policies
regarding equal opportunities and diversity, including a
commitment to supporting service user participation.
5. Personal commitment to reflective practice, personal
development and growth.
6. Perceptive leader capable of inspiring, motivating and
coaching people to focus on our charitable mission
and service users, and to work co-operatively and
collaboratively, and perform to the very best of their
abilities.
7. Results orientated, flexible, adaptable, with a ‘can do’
attitude.
8. Capability to work in a dynamic, stressful and highpressure environment, managing multiple services and
projects.
9. Strategic thinker who can translate strategies into
workable deliverables
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Terms and Conditions
Length of contract:
Permanent
Salary:
£50,000
Normal place of work:
Pact Central Office or Home Based with ability to be in Pact
Central Office minimum of 2 days per week.
Extensive national travel.
Pension:
Pact contributory pension scheme (or current scheme for
existing employees)
Annual Leave:
30 days + Bank holidays
Hours of work:
Full time / Negotiable
Pact operates a flexi-time system. Weekend and evening work may be required by the post
holder for which Time Off In Lieu is available.
This post is subject to a 6 month probationary period, two satisfactory references from previous
employers, an Enhanced DBS Disclosure, and Prison Security Check (National Police
Computer Record).
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