Up to £82,992 per annum

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.

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).

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

Closing date: 22 May 2024

For further information or to apply, please click on the 'Enquire/Apply' button below.