Hearings Case Manager

Social Work England are the specialist regulator for social work in England, focused on enabling positive change in social work. Every day, social workers support millions of people to improve their chances in life. We are taking a new approach to regulating social workers in their vital roles. We believe in the power of collaboration and share a common goal with those we regulate - to protect the public, enable positive change and ultimately improve people's lives.

The role of the Hearings Case Manager is to deliver our pre-hearing case management and scheduling functions to ensure that all hearing events are fairly and efficiently arranged. You will work to targets for scheduling fitness to practise final hearing cases, referred from the case examiners as well as meeting our key performance indicators and statutory dead-lines for interim order cases, final order cases and registration appeals and restoration ap-plications.

You will manage the use of hearings resources, including the delivery of our remote hearing protocols and allocate work to partners (adjudicators and legal advisers). You will work closely with our hearing operations managers and legal services provider to ensure cases progress smoothly to hearings and allocate work to team members and provide line management to hearings officers and hearings support officers.

• Manage a varied and complex caseload and ensure the timely progression of cases through our case management processes by prioritising work independently, managing your own workload and using initiative and problem-solving skills to manage competing demands.
• Ensure all meetings and hearings are listed in a timely and efficient manner, within statutory time frames and agreed operational standards and performance measures while maximising the use of resources available.
• Ensure that the listing processes are carried out fairly and transparently, and that systems are in place to monitor these.
• Make robust, well-reasoned case management decisions in accordance with our statutory framework and case law, ensuring they are proportionate, transparent and fair. The decisions should support our public protection objective and be capable of withstanding challenge by the courts, the Professional Standards Authority, social worker and their representative, defence, our adjudicators and internal audits.
• Manage high profile and complex cases, seeking appropriate support from senior team members and ensuring special requirements and/or reasonable adjustments are arranged, where applicable.
• Line manage a team of hearings officers and hearings support officers, providing regular supervision to support the team to manage the smooth running of all hearings and meetings, ensuring team members are fully trained and able to carry out their roles.
• Provide support and advice to the hearings team on difficult or complex listings and issues, acting as a point of escalation for the team on matters relating to scheduled hearings and meetings, case management and during hearings themselves.
• Manage case meetings between various internal and external hearing participants.
• Manage workload allocation to ensure fair distribution of work to partners and team members.
• Build relationships with internal and external stakeholders to achieve efficient, case progression, scheduling and resolution of issues, including working with our legal services provider.
• Work with the hearing operations managers and wider fitness to practise management to implement and embed change initiatives and continuous process improvement.
• Deputise for the hearing operations managers as necessary.

• Experience of working in a hearing, tribunal, event planning or case scheduling…