Salary : £100,545 to £111,533 plus relocation support Location: Northallerton / Hybrid Opportunity. A safe life. A happy family life. A healthy life. Achieving in life North Yorkshire is England’s largest county and a beautiful, vibrant place to live and work. It is an exciting time for me personally as I join North Yorkshire Council as the new Corporate Director of Children and Young People’s Service in January 2026. Even at this early stage, I feel welcomed and inspired by talented, ambitious colleagues with a strong track record and a shared commitment to excellence. One of my first priorities is to recruit to the new role of Assistant Director Children’s Partnerships and Sufficiency, strengthening our Children’s Services leadership team and creating a pivotal, system-wide leadership role. North Yorkshire Council has a strong reputation for delivering high-quality services. Our Children’s Services are nationally recognised for excellence and routinely share best practice across the sector. Our teams are proud of what has been achieved and are committed to continuous improvement, ensuring services deliver real impact for children, young people and families while making effective use of public money. While many residents enjoy a high quality of life, North Yorkshire is diverse. Some communities experience significant deprivation, and the county’s rural geography presents challenges around access and sufficiency. These realities make strong partnership working and strategic leadership essential. The Council is approaching its three-year anniversary following local government reorganisation in April 2023, bringing together eight councils into the new North Yorkshire Council. This unification creates new opportunities to strengthen local delivery, improve system working and secure greater investment through devolution. The York and North Yorkshire devolution deal could unlock around £2.4bn of investment over 30 years, focused on economic prosperity and long-term opportunity. This provides a powerful platform for the new Assistant Director to shape innovative, sustainable approaches across the whole children’s system. This is an ideal role for an ambitious children’s services leader ready for their next step, offering exposure across the full breadth of services and partners, and excellent preparation for future senior leadership roles. Our most recent Ofsted inspection recognised the strength of our vision and leadership: “Children and their families in North Yorkshire benefit from an outstanding children’s service… Leaders have built on their well-established culture… All services share high aspiration and ambition for children… There is a strong and clear council vision for children’s and SEND services and outcomes, shared across Members and Officers.” While we are proud of this recognition, we know there is more to do. We are deeply committed to ensuring children and young people are safe, happy, healthy and able to achieve within inclusive, high-quality services that value diversity and individuality. We prioritise supporting families to enable children to thrive within family environments wherever possible. With characteristic Yorkshire resilience, we continue to respond to increasing complexity of need and rising demand. We do this through strong partnerships, embracing challenge and a relentless focus on improvement. That is where you come in. You will be welcomed into a supportive, ambitious Children’s Services leadership team, alongside strong corporate support and constructive challenge. Together, we are united in our ambition for children and families across North Yorkshire. We are now seeking a professional, influential Assistant Director to lead strategic sufficiency, commissioning and partnership infrastructure that underpins children’s services across the system. As Assistant Director Children’s Partnerships and Sufficiency, you will play a central, system-wide leadership role, connecting across the full breadth of services to children and young people. You will jointly lead delivery of the Council’s ambition for children, with accountability for strategic sufficiency, commissioning and partnership infrastructure that underpins education, care, early years and SEND services. This role offers exceptional exposure to senior leaders across the Council and key partners, including police, health, education, probation, elected members and the voluntary and community sector. It provides a strong platform for leadership development for those with longer-term ambition to progress into senior leadership roles in children’s services. Your core focus will include: Delivering corporate and Children and Young People’s Plan priorities through strong partnership working Providing clear, innovative leadership across strategy, commissioning and operational delivery Shared responsibility for the overall performance and improvement of Children and Young People’s Services You will lead statutory responsibilities for school and childcare sufficiency, partnership coordination, transport and admissions, alongside cross-system governance for safeguarding, SEND and early years. You will oversee commissioning, evaluation and market development, ensuring value for money and sustainability. You will work closely with fellow Assistant Directors, Corporate Directors, elected members and senior leaders across partner organisations, exercising significant autonomy and influence. The portfolio includes: CYPS commissioning and contract management Partnerships and safeguarding Transport, admissions and appeals Early years sufficiency School place planning, including capital and PFI As a senior leader you will: Be a core member of the Children and Young People’s Leadership Team Lead collaboratively across the directorate to ensure strong practice and outcomes Sponsor cross-cutting transformation activity in response to local need and national reforms Lead prevention, commissioning and targeted services Manage delegated budgets and provide assurance on performance and savings Lead on resilience, risk and business continuity planning You will provide outstanding strategic leadership, promote inclusion and model the Council’s values and behaviours. This is a politically restricted post and subject to DBS clearance. This is a new and highly influential role, which you will help to shape. Join me and the wider leadership team to realise our ambition for children and families in North Yorkshire. Want to learn more? I would encourage you to speak to our executive recruitment partners to further explore your interest further. More information regarding the role is available, please click apply for job description and details of how to apply. El Mayhew Corporate Director, Children and Young People’s Service North Yorkshire Council We are committed to directly recruiting staff and will not accept applications nor services from agency suppliers. Close Date: 25 January 2026