Help shape a national service that protects children's rights.

Every child deserves to have their voice heard and their rights upheld.

At Children First, we stand up for Scotland's children by protecting them from harm, helping them recover from trauma and ensuring they have the opportunity to thrive. As Scotland's national children's charity, we are looking for an experienced and values-led leader to join our National Safeguarders Panel team.

This is a unique opportunity to influence practice at a national level while leading quality improvement, children's rights and accountability across one of Scotland's most important child protection services.

About the role

Working alongside the Assistant Director and two other Service Managers, you will help lead the National Safeguarders Panel on behalf of the Scottish Government.

You'll take the lead on complaints and concerns relating to Safeguarders, ensuring these are managed fairly, consistently and in line with legislation and best practice. You'll champion children's rights throughout our work, drive continuous quality improvement and help shape learning and development for Safeguarders across Scotland.

You'll also build strong partnerships with Scottish Government, Children's Hearings Scotland, the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration and other key stakeholders to ensure children remain at the heart of everything we do.

This is a strategic leadership role where you'll combine operational management, quality assurance, relationship building and service development to make a lasting difference for children and young people.

What you'll bring

We're looking for someone who can demonstrate:

• Significant leadership experience within children's services or a related environment.
• Experience of managing investigations, complaints or quality assurance processes.
• Strong knowledge of Scotland's Children's Hearings System and children's rights.
• The ability to build effective relationships across complex partnerships.
• Experience leading teams, managing resources and delivering service improvement.
• Excellent judgement, communication and decision-making skills.
• A collaborative leadership style that reflects our values.
• A Social Work qualification or another relevant professional qualification at SCQF Level 9 (or equivalent) is essential.

Why join Children First?

By joining us you'll be helping to shape services that protect children's rights across Scotland while working alongside passionate colleagues who share your commitment to making a difference.

We offer:

• A workplace with values of With love, With purpose and With strength
• 40 days annual leave (inclusive of bank holidays)
• Flexible and hybrid working
• Pension scheme
• Westfield Health wellbeing support
• Blue Light Card discounts
• Learning and development opportunities
• A Fair Work accredited workplace

Our values

Everything we do is guided by our values.

With love, we put children first.

With purpose, we transform children's lives together.

With strength, we do whatever it takes to protect Scotland's children.

If you're an experienced leader who shares our commitment to children's rights and wants to influence practice on a national scale, we'd love to hear from you.

The HR & Operations Manager is responsible for delivering a high-quality HR service across the organisation, supporting effective people management, compliance, and a positive employee experience.

The role is primarily HR-focused, with responsibility for overseeing the smooth day-to-day running of office operations. Working collaboratively with administrative and finance colleagues, you will help ensure efficient organisational processes and effective operational support.

You will also lead the ongoing development and improvement of HR policies, systems, and processes, contributing to an effective, compliant, and positive working environment.

About you

You are an experienced HR professional with a hands-on, generalist background and a strong understanding of employment law and HR best practice. Confident managing the full employee lifecycle and employee relations casework, you provide practical, trusted advice to managers and colleagues.

Highly organised and proactive, you can manage competing priorities, work independently, and identify opportunities to improve processes and ways of working. You are equally comfortable supporting day-to-day office operations, working collaboratively to ensure the organisation runs smoothly.

With excellent communication skills and a professional, approachable manner, you’re a proactive and reliable team player with a genuine commitment to the mission of Clan Childlaw.

About Clan Childlaw

Clan wants a Scotland where all children and young people’s rights are respected, protected, and fulfilled. For that to happen, Scotland has to be a place where all children and young people can stand up for their rights. That means we work to ensure children and young people have:

Lawyers that are experts in working with children

People around them who can enable them to use their rights and amplify their voices

Respect as rights-holders, who are entitled to hold duty-bearers to account if their rights are not fulfilled.

What We Do

To find out more about what we do you can visit our website: About Clan Childlaw - Clan Childlaw

Our Values

Our values are the principles we uphold in all our work, no matter what. They are the foundation of our workplace culture. Everyone who works at Clan shows our values in all they do and say.

We are supportive: We listen and respond, we provide encouragement and emotional help to children and young people, to others who support young people, and to each other.

We are bold: We are confident and courageous in amplifying the voices of children and young people. We are prepared to take risks when we need to, to defend children and young people’s rights.

We are dynamic: We are always active, always progressing. We are positive, full of energy and new ideas. We ask for change where it is needed.

"I love my job at Clan. It's busy and varied and no two days are ever the same. We have a great team here and everyone is really supportive." - A member of the Clan Childlaw team

What we can offer you

Clan Childlaw’s mission is very important to us, but our people are important too. We recognise the importance of a good work-life balance and a friendly supportive work environment. We offer:

33 days annual leave (inclusive of public holidays) increasing to 35 after 2 years’ service

Auto-enrolment into our pension scheme after 3 months service

Flexibility around your working day, with the opportunity to work your hours between 7am and 7pm and, the option to work from home for part of the working week. Flexibility arrangements will vary depending on the role and business needs, with some positions requiring closer alignment to core working hours to support service delivery.

Access to our employee counselling service.

Learning and development is important to us and our team. We hope it’s important to you too. You will be encouraged to engage in learning and continued professional development.

"I have never worked in such a lovely organisation before! I feel valued, seen and heard as an individual here." - A member of the Clan Childlaw team

"I love my job at Clan. It's busy and varied and no two days are ever the same. We have a great team here and everyone is really supportive." - A member of the Clan Childlaw team

*We operate hybrid working with the opportunity to work from home some of the time. The role will also require travel between our office locations on a regular basis.