Terms & Conditions: 37 hours, Full time
Department: Childrens and Education
Closing Date: 3rd July 2026
Interviews: TBC
Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council is seeking an outstanding leader to join our Children’s Services and Education directorate as Education Entitlements and Compliance Service Manager. This is a newly created strategic management role with responsibility for leading key statutory education and childcare functions that make a direct difference to children, young people, families, schools and providers across the borough.
This is a high-profile leadership post spanning mainstream and SEND home to school transport, Early Years Free Entitlements, Families Information Services, education trips and visits, complaints and compliance. You will provide strategic leadership, operational management and governance oversight across these areas, ensuring the Council discharges its legal duties lawfully, consistently and transparently, while delivering a responsive, high-quality service to schools, providers, families, elected members and partners.
Why apply?
This is an opportunity to shape and lead a service at the heart of the Council’s statutory responsibilities for education, childcare and access. The role offers broad strategic influence across complex and high-risk service areas, including transport for some of our most vulnerable children and young people, the delivery of early education entitlements from 9 months upwards, oversight of education trips and visits, and responsibility for complaints and compliance. It is also an exciting time to join, with the post created to provide strong leadership capacity, resilience and clear accountability across a wide and evolving service portfolio.
About you
You will be an experienced manager with strong knowledge of education, childcare and local authority statutory responsibilities, alongside a proven ability to lead complex services, manage risk and drive improvement. You will be confident in working with senior leaders, schools, early years providers, transport colleagues, elected members and partner agencies, and able to provide clear, credible advice in sensitive and high-profile situations.
Post details
Permanent, full time, 37 hours per week, Grade K.
For detailed information on the role, please refer to the Job Description and Person Specification. When completing your application, please demonstrate clearly how you meet the essential criteria, as these will be used to shortlist candidates for interview.
If you are looking for a role where you can provide visible leadership, shape service delivery and ensure strong statutory practice across a critical education entitlements and compliance portfolio, we would welcome your application.
