Important Information for Current Barnet Council Employees
Where possible, employees who have access to Oracle are encouraged to apply via the Opportunity Marketplace (Internal Career Site). This helps to ensure applications are correctly identified as internal and avoids potential delays during the recruitment process.
This position is open to internal candidates employed by LBB. Any applications received from external candidates outside of the above will not be considered and will be automatically rejected.
About Barnet Council
Barnet is a borough with much to be proud of. Our excellent schools, vibrant town centres, vast green spaces and diverse communities all help make it a great place to live and work. As a council we want to build on these strengths as we move into the future. We are growing and developing as an organisation to meet the challenges facing our borough and we are committed to working with partner organisations and residents to make Barnet even better. As an organisation, our staff are committed to Our Values: Learning to Improve, Caring, Inclusive, Collaborative – which drive everything we do.
About the role
At the London Borough of Barnet, we are ambitious for our children and families. We are committed to delivering an integrated, child‑centred and relational approach to Family Help and safeguarding, focused on improving outcomes through excellent practice, strong partnerships and a culture that values innovation, learning and reflective leadership.
The Court Progression Officer provides strategic oversight, coordination and professional leadership for all court proceedings involving Children’s Social Care, including Public Law Outline (PLO), pre proceedings and care proceedings. The post holder exercises professional authority across the service to direct and influence practice, ensuring that all court work meets high standards of quality, timeliness and compliance.
The role works collaboratively across all social work services, Legal Services and partner agencies, while holding practitioners and managers to account for delivering effective, child focused and legally robust court work in line with statutory requirements and court expectations.
The post holder acts as a central point of expertise, assurance and practice leadership, providing oversight, challenge and direction to practitioners and managers, and supporting senior leadership to maintain strong governance of court and PLO activity across Family Services. This includes driving improvement in case progression, reducing delay, strengthening practice quality and enhancing the Local Authority’s interface with the courts.
Please click here to download the Job description for this role. (Right-click and select “Open in new tab” so you can keep the job description open while completing your application)
About you
You will be a qualified and registered social worker with a minimum of 3 years post qualified experience in statutory children’s social care.
You will:
- Have substantial experience of working within care proceedings, including Public Law Outline (PLO), interim and final orders.
Have strong knowledge of care and permanence planning with the ability to promote high quality, evidence-based planning for children.
Have considerable post-qualifying direct experience in adoption work.
- Have demonstrable experience of improving or supporting case progression and reducing delay in court proceedings.
- Have experience of providing advice, consultation or professional challenge to social workers and managers.
- Have experience of joint working with Legal Services, CAFCASS and partner agencies.
- Be able to maintain oversight of complex, high volume information and identify risk, drift or delay.
Be able to deliver practice guidance, briefings or learning sessions.
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