North Yorkshire is England's largest county and a beautiful, vibrant place to live and work.
The Council has a reputation for delivering high quality services. Its Children’s Services are nationally recognised for their excellence, taking a national lead to share best practice. We are immensely proud of our track record and are committed to ongoing continuous improvement to ensure that our services are of high quality and have impact in the communities that we serve whilst providing efficient use of public money. For many of our residents, the quality of life is high but the needs of communities across our localities are diverse with some areas experiencing significant deprivation, alongside the rural nature of the county which impacts on accessibility.
It is an exciting time for the Council as we have celebrated our 2-year anniversary following local government reform and the merging of the 8 district, borough and county councils to form The North Yorkshire Council in April 2023.
As the county council was the continuing authority, children’s services were unchanged by this structural transformation. However, unification brings the opportunity to improve localised services in this great county and secure greater investment through our devolution deal for North Yorkshire. The devolution deal for York and North Yorkshire could potentially unlock around £2.4bn of investment over 30 years, with a focus on improving the economic prosperity and future long-term opportunities for all residents.
This provides a great foundation for a new Corporate Director of Children and Young People’s Services to further shape exciting, innovative approaches, making your mark in this role and on a national stage. Ideal for an aspirational Chief Executive, or Children’s Service leader wanting to step up to the leadership challenge with, in our opinion, the best Children’s Service in the country.
The Ofsted review gave further recognition to the vision and ambition throughout the organisation… “Children and their families in North Yorkshire benefit from an outstanding children’s service. Leaders have built on their well-established culture and service initiatives to further develop and improve services for children since the previous outstanding judgement. Children and families have access to high-quality services when they need them. All services share high aspiration and ambition for children, which enhances their lives and opportunities. There is a strong and clear council vision for children’s and SEND services and outcomes, shared across Members and Officers. The vision is clear and simple and is underpinned with a strong sense of what is right for children. Members described officers as committed and having pride in their work and the working relationship between officers and members is good.”
We are strongly committed to ensuring children and young people are safe, happy, healthy and receive the best education within inclusive and high-quality settings, that value diversity and individualism. High quality education brings alive aspirations for adulthood, ambition and liberates talent and ingenuity. We understand children and young people thrive within family environments and prioritise support to ensure this continues for the majority of children.
We take great pride in the successful track record we have here at North Yorkshire Council. We consistently perform well in inspections and are amongst the best performing when compared to other comparable Councils. We also have a good story to tell when it comes to value for money, service delivery and impact in the communities of North Yorkshire we serve. Whilst what we do, we do well, we are not complacent and with true Yorkshire resilience we constantly strive for further improvement, to meet growing complexity of need and significant shifts in demand for our critical services. We have a great deal more to do for our children and families.
There are significant challenges facing the service and the organisation as a whole. We are currently in the process of delivering a transformation programme which is an ambitious programme to realign the council in the face of reduced funding levels, increasing complexity and demand for services and harness the opportunities that emerging technologies bring. The only way to address the magnitude of the challenge is by an equally ambitious programme of change. It is more important than ever that we work in genuine partnership, are crystal clear about our priorities, and are resolutely focussed on improving outcomes.
We are well placed and experienced in meeting such challenges working with our key partners to identify opportunities for transformation; involving external scrutiny and review to provide independence to our thinking and inform our decision making. We have positive and highly valued partnerships with professional associations, elected members, health, schools and settings and voluntary organisations at county and locality level to transform services to improve outcomes for children and young people and their families.
You will be welcomed by Management Board colleagues and a corporate suite of support services, that will provide support and critical challenge as we are united as one Council: jointly ambitious for children and families across our region.
We are now looking for a professional, influential Corporate Director to drive change, help define our future direction, influence key stakeholders and support service improvement in the Children’s and Young People’s Services directorate and across the breadth of the authority.
Want to learn more?
Visit www.northyorks.gov.uk/directorcyps to view a video by Richard Flinton Chief Executive talking to Sir Stuart Carlton current post holder, see further details regarding the role and details of how to apply.
Close Date: 4th June 2025
To apply please click theApply Nowlink below.
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