Participation & User Voice Manager

The starting salary for this role is £43,923 per annum and is based on a 36 working hour week. This role is a 12-month secondment / fixed term contract opportunity providing maternity cover for the substantive post holder.

Rewards and Benefits

• 26 days' holiday (pro rata for part time staff), rising to 28 days after 2 years' service and 30 days after 5 years' service or Annual leave allowance (for bank) or remove for term time
• Option to buy up to 10 days of additional annual leave
• An extensive Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) to support health and wellbeing
• A generous local government salary related pension
• Lifestyle discounts including gym, travel, shopping and many more
• 2 paid volunteering days plus 1 team volunteering day per year
• Up to 5 days of carer's leave per year
• Learning and development hub where you can access a wealth of resources
• Paternity, adoption and dependents leave

Could you see yourself leading our Participation and User Voice Team at Surrey? Here engagement with young people is not a singular task, we aspire to ingrain it in everything we do to help influence decisions and shape services.

Our Team Manager opportunity represents a meaningful chance to build and create safe spaces where young people feel empowered to have their voice heard and valued and where collaboration within our team and with our partners are at the heart of how we work.

About our Team Manager opportunity:

As Team Manager you will work closely with our co-team manager, providing cover while the other co-manager is on maternity leave. You will share responsibilities for team culture, training, meetings, service planning, management, and reporting.

Other key areas of work will include:

• Leading the team to enhance engagement with care-experienced youth
• Overseeing the Surrey Youth Cabinet
• Managing our training offer for professionals
• Collaborating with Council Members, senior leaders, and external partners to amplify youth voices in service design
• A focus on driving strategies for expanding diverse youth engagement both online and offline, stepping in to join direct youth work if/when needed

The leadership and development of this team is important and something we pride ourselves on doing well. We are looking for someone with the ability to use their effective team leadership skills to set clear and meaningful goals. You will motivate and empower the team to achieve these, supporting them when needed to address struggles or challenges. You will have management oversight for a talented group, including:

• Two Participation Leads: Engaging with looked after children and care leavers.
• A Participation Lead: Responsible for running Surrey Youth Cabinet.
• A Business Support Coordinator: Handling team reporting, admin, and the Recruit Crew programme.
• An additional team member: Either supporting youth-led training for professionals or managing a youth research officer running a one-year funded research project.

Shortlisting Criteria

To apply for this role, we invite you to upload you CV and respond to the following application questions which are linked to key shortlisting criteria for this role. Your responses will be used to shortlist your application against:

1. Please tell us about your approach to management, describing how you have successfully led a team.
2. Please tell us about a project or piece of work that you have led of which you are most proud. What impact did it have and what challenges did you face?
3. Can you describe some of the challenges you have previously faced in increasing engagement with young people and how you have overcome these?
4. Please tell us about a time where you have had to work collaboratively with colleagues or external organisations to achieve an outcome. What was your approach?​

At Surrey, our values and behaviours are just as important as our skills and abilities. They shape who we are as an organisation. Find out more about the values we follow.

For more information please find the full job description below and refer to this before submitting your application. We also invite you to read our Life at Surrey handbook to see insights of the culture at Surrey and how as a valued employee, you can help shape our Council.

The job advert closes at 23:59 on Thursday the 14th of December 2023.

A date for interviews is to be confirmed.

An enhanced DBS 'Disclosure and Barring Service' check for regulated activity (formerly known as CRB) and the Children's and Adults' Barred List checks will be required for this role.

Contact Details

To organise an informal discussion and find out more about the role, please email

We look forward to receiving your application, please click on the apply online button below to submit.

Our Commitment

Surrey County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. A guaranteed interview will be offered to all disabled applications where:

• The candidate has evidenced the minimum criteria for the role through their application
• The candidate has chosen to share that they have a disability on the application form

Our application form and onboarding process will provide an opportunity to request any reasonable adjustments for the interview and/or the role.

We want to be an inclusive and diverse employer reflecting the community we serve and particularly welcome applications from all underrepresented groups.