Description
As our Adult Social Care Client Financial Services Lead, you’ll oversee the essential financial services that safeguard our most vulnerable residents. It’s a role with genuine, community-wide impact – a chance to lead dedicated specialist teams, champion fair practice and make sure vital support is delivered with compassion and integrity right across the borough.
Your focus will be providing clear, professional and operational leadership across our client financial functions, ensuring our work is fair, accurate and fully compliant with statutory standards. Managing a team of specialist service managers and staff, you’ll oversee financial assessments, direct payments, client affairs, care and protection, supplier payments and public health funerals, making sure these vital services run smoothly and consistently every day.
A key part of your role will involve acting as our trusted subject-matter expert and primary liaison between Adult Social Care, Finance, Legal and external partners such as the Court of Protection, the Office of the Public Guardian and the Department for Work and Pensions. You’ll interpret complex legislation and statutory guidance, turning intricate policies into clear, practical guidance and robust operational standards for your teams. When sensitive, high-risk or contentious cases arise, you’ll step in with sound professional judgement and delegated authority to resolve escalations carrying significant financial, safeguarding or legal implications.
Beyond day-to-day operations, you’ll champion continuous service improvement and strong financial governance. You’ll lead on implementing audit recommendations, embedding quality assurance frameworks across our work and supporting corporate transformation programmes locally. Working across organisational boundaries, you’ll manage operational budgets, build service resilience and collaborate closely with senior colleagues across two councils to achieve positive, resident-focused outcomes.
You’ll bring substantial subject-matter expertise across Adult Social Care client financial services, gained within a local authority, social care setting or similar public-sector environment. You possess an in-depth understanding of care charging, financial assessments, deputyship, appointeeship, direct payments, supplier payments and public health funerals, alongside the statutory and technical knowledge needed to lead these services confidently from day one.
You’re an experienced, supportive leader who knows how to guide, motivate and develop specialist teams through operational managers. Your analytical skills enable you to exercise sound, objective judgement when resolving contentious casework involving complex legal, safeguarding or financial risks. You’re also an exceptional communicator – someone who can translate complex statutory requirements into transparent procedures and build constructive, collaborative relationships across multidisciplinary teams and partner organisations.
This role offers exceptional breadth, influence and professional autonomy. You’ll lead specialist services that support Adult Social Care teams recognised by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) as Outstanding in Kensington and Chelsea and Good in Westminster. Following the retirement of a long-standing colleague, you’ll step into an experienced, dedicated team with the real opportunity to shape the future direction of the service, working alongside the Head of Service to review our management structure so it continues to provide strong leadership and clear accountability.
The salary for this role is GBP 70,953 per year.