With stunning countryside and superb community spirit, Wiltshire is a fantastic place to live and work. It has a resilient economy, good schools, and one of the lowest crime rates in the country.
Our Mission
- The people of Wiltshire are empowered to live full, healthy, and enriched lives.
- Communities continue to beautiful and exciting places to live.
- The local economy thrives and is supported by a skilled workforce.
- The council leads the way in mitigating the climate changes ahead.
Our Location
Wiltshire is a thriving county with a rich and diverse heritage. The council is the fourth largest unitary council in England. With a population of nearly 510,000, including around 30,000 military personnel and their families, and with around half of the population living in towns and villages with fewer than 10,000 residents.
Wiltshire is a beautiful, predominantly rural county. Our towns and villages and our only city, Salisbury, are set against a stunning natural backdrop. Almost half of the county is designated as an ‘area of outstanding natural beauty’ and we also have two world heritage sites at Stonehenge and Avebury.
The Visit Wiltshire website is a great showcase of the county’s attractions.
Travel
We have excellent transport connections, with the M4 corridor running through the county offering easy access to London, Wales and the rest of the country. London Heathrow and Bristol International airports and the main south coast ferry ports are all within easy reach. We also have 14 train stations in the county, providing links to every part of the UK.
Schools
There is no shortage of good primary and secondary schools here either, and in terms of GCSE performance, the percentage of pupils achieving 5+ A* to C grades including English and Mathematics in Wiltshire is above the average for South West England, as the government’s school performance tables show.
Housing
When it comes to places to live, areas around our office hubs at Trowbridge, Chippenham and Salisbury offer great diversity and quality of life. Properties in Wiltshire had an overall average price of £344,554 over the last year, comparatively lower than in places such as Bath and Bristol.
Our Identity
We are public servants, innovating and collaborating with partners and residents to build stronger communities.
We are an agile, high performing organisation, we reward achievement, recognise effort and are focussed on making a difference and delivering the best outcomes for our residents.
Staff at Wiltshire Council are motivated, energetic, and committed, who genuinely share the ‘one council’ ethos and are driven by a desire to improve outcomes for the residents of Wiltshire.
The council takes a proactive approach to organisational development through initiatives such as ‘Our Identity’, which sets out a shared vision of how the employees are expected to work together to deliver services and priorities.
Benefits & Support
We have invested in social work staff across the service supporting the delivery of manageable caseloads, and the effective recruitment and development of staff and leaders.
Our strong workforce development programme promotes continuous development for all staff, with a focus on improving practice and outcomes for children.
- Generous annual leave entitlement, starting at 26 days holiday plus bank holidays, rising to 31 after five years service.
- Option to purchase an additional 20 days.
- Local government pension scheme – all our new employees are assessed against criteria and automatically enrolled into the scheme (unless you choose to opt out). If you already have continuous service or a pension with a different local authority this can be transferred to our scheme.
- Local government pension scheme – all our new employees are assessed against criteria and automatically enrolled into the scheme (unless you choose to opt out). If you already have continuous service or a pension with a different local authority this can be transferred to our scheme.
- A hybrid working model, so you will also have more opportunities to work remotely from home and across the county.
- A work laptop and mobile phone from day one.
- Autonomy to manage time and schedule.
- ‘Patch working’ – through your own geographical working area
- An attractive rewards package with an excellent range of discounted products and services with national and local retailers via our Wiltshire Rewards scheme
- Subsidised rail – we can offer you 25% discount on rail season tickets.
- Discounted leisure membership.
- Occupational health – offers a variety of employee wellbeing services to support a healthy work/life balance and lifestyle, including health screening and smoking cessation sessions.
- Family friendly policies – we have a range of family friendly policies to support staff balance work and responsibilities outside of work including maternity leave, shared parental leave, adoption leave, maternity support and paternity leave, ordinary parental leave and carer’s leave.
- Full induction which includes equipment training, shadow partner agencies including local equipment delivery
- Our HR / OD team have built an impressive suite of learning and training activities that provide a rounded and learner-centred experience. This includes a new learning management website that enables you to manage your own learning online.
- Light, spacious, and modern working environments allowing flexibility to work at any of our hubs.
- Free parking at each of our hubs, as well as at other sites across Chippenham, Trowbridge, and Salisbury.
- Car share scheme – if you share your commute with another employee you can benefit from reduced travel costs, while helping to reduce the number of cars on the roads
- Support is available to newly appointed employees relocating to work for Wiltshire Council. There is certain eligibility criteria for this scheme, for example, it applies to ‘hard to recruit’ roles only. Please contact Sarah.Fraser@wiltshire.gov.uk for further information to discuss whether this scheme is something you may benefit from.
Children's Services
There are many improvement success stories within the council, not least within children’s services – a service which has embraced a wide-ranging improvement journey resulting in the team being rated as ‘Outstanding’ over all by Ofsted in its latest inspection.
The learning from this improvement journey is now informing transformation in adults’ services and the wider performance management approach across the council.
Jen Salter started her social work career as a student at Wiltshire Council, 17 years ago, and worked her way up to director of children’s services.
“I have literally had my whole career at Wiltshire council and can evidence to everyone else who wants to progress or who is ambitious, and thinks that this is the way they personally can make a real difference, that it can be done. I’ve only ever worked for Wiltshire Council and that is where my career will stay.”
Our Teams
The Support and Safeguarding service consists of five teams, within four hub areas (north, south, east and two in the west). Work is passed to these teams direct from the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH).
Staff in these teams will work from single assessment under S17 and S47, through to adoption, ensuring families have one social worker to support them through their journey.
Our family key workers, work with families at a complex common assessment framework (CAF) level and to co-work cases with social workers that require more intensive parenting support.
We have a focus on prevention and earlier intervention with our families. We’re also working towards a model of multidisciplinary teams, with the inclusion of domestic abuse workers within our teams.
Based within our support and safeguarding service, the multi agency safeguarding hub (MASH) has a good reputation following a positive joint targeted area inspection (JTAI) in December 2016.
There are strong relationships with all partner agencies. Police, health, education, domestic abuse, substance misuse and child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) are co-located partners within the MASH. There are also a number of virtual partners including probation, army welfare service and adult mental health to name a few. The MASH is our front door for all referrals in relation to children, including those with special educational needs and disability (SEND).
We’re in the second phase of families and children’s transformation and will be working to further develop the function of the front door, to include a stronger focus on early help and prevention. Staff within the MASH make a decision about level of risk and need, alongside who can best support the family. Further work required is then passed on to the most appropriate professional to take forward.
The special educational needs and disabilities services (SEND) is responsible for driving changes and transforming services for children and young people – ensuring that they and their families can lead the inclusive and fulfilling lives that they deserve.
The teams provide high quality, co-ordinated child and family centred services, responding to needs by promoting early intervention, prevention and social inclusion, and offering access to services close to home.
The care and placement service (CPS) is responsible for providing effective strategies and services to improve the life chances and outcomes of looked after children – ensuring we meet the needs of the most vulnerable children in Wiltshire.
Children in care teams operate from two locations in the county, providing social work support to children who are in care and to those leaving care. There is a key focus on fostering services, this service provides the recruitment, assessment and support of in-house foster carers.
Developing services and educational support to looked after children through the work of the virtual school is an essential part of the work to improve opportunities for these vulnerable children.
Wiltshire’s youth offending service manages all young people who have offended aged 10-17, including those on statutory court orders and out-of-court disposals. The YOT’s role is to provide effective support to young people, their families, victims of youth crime, and the wider community.
We work with children and young people who are involved in offending behaviour and offer a service to all victims where young people have been convicted of a crime against them or where suitability for a youth conditional caution is being assessed. Wiltshire YOT works with a clear focus on public protection, restorative justice, working with victims, building strengths, and reducing offending (and the risks associated with offending).
Working in partnership plays a crucial role in supporting the work of the YOT and we work closely with children’s social care, SEND, and police.
The YOT is a partnership, and benefits from the deployment of dedicated secondees including police, probation, and education welfare staff. Alongside youth justice workers and qualified YOT case managers (social workers and probation officers) the team works together to tackle youth crime in Wiltshire. The YOT has a dedicated pathway into CAMHS.
Adult Social Care
Working together with our partners, we support people over the age of 18 with a physical or sensory impairment, mental health issues, or a learning disability. Whoever they are, we make sure the person is at the heart of everything we do. Being an inclusive organisation is one element of our identity and inclusive workforce strategy which sets out how we create an environment where everyone feels engaged and able to flourish; where we treat each other with respect, celebrating our differences and the value we all bring.
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