Wokingham borough’s vision is to be ‘a great place to live, learn, work and grow and a great place to do business’ and is at the heart of all that we do, both in children’s social care and adult social care.
Amongst the organisation’s priorities are enriching lives, safe, strong communities, and changing the way we work for our borough.
To get a flavour of how we work, these five values underpin everything we do to support vulnerable adults, children, young people and their families:
- We focus on making a difference
- We aim high
- We are strategic, efficient and effective
- We value our people
- We drive partnership, collaboration and coproduction
Employee benefits
Flexible working arrangements
(Options for working more flexibly including hybrid working or adapted/flexi hours. All requests need to be discussed with your line manager for approval).
25-31 days annual leave, plus Bank Holidays (rising by 5 days after 5 years continued service)
Local government pension scheme
A generous defined pension scheme, with flexible options for employees to opt in, opt out or choose a 50/50 contribution.
An independent programme so employees can access confidential support to help overcome life’s obstacles. Provides access to services such as counselling, available by phone 24/7 and access to a ‘Your Care’ health management platform covering physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.
(Lifestyle Savings are built to support every aspect of your daily life. From supermarkets and high street shopping, to utility bills and retailers in your local community, discover a world of savings and discounts with you in mind.
E-vouchers – Pay a discounted price and the e-voucher will be emailed straight to your inbox to start using.
Physical Gift Cards – Order at a discounted price and receive the card to your door in days!
Top-up Gift Cards – Add extra value to your physical gift cards by selecting a top-up gift card from a wide range of leading UK retailers.
Discount Codes – Simply use the discount codes available to save more when you shop with your chosen retailer.
Local Discounts – Help support your local community with discounts specific to the independent businesses in your region).
Offering a range of discounts across multiple eateries, cafes and restaurants throughout the Borough.
Parking permits for carparks accessible from the Shute End Wokingham office
Car Salary Sacrifice Scheme – Our Car benefit gives you the chance to drive a brand-new, fully maintained, and insured vehicle for a manageable fixed monthly amount as part of our salary sacrifice scheme, Payroll Pay®
Cycle to Work Scheme
Rail Season Ticket Loan – A seasoned rail ticket loan scheme recovered by employees salary
Our staff networks meet regularly to promote inclusivity. These networks offer support and safe spaces, and have helped shape policy, as actions and ideas are listened to by senior leadership. Currently we have:
- Ethnically Diverse Staff Network (EDSN)
- LGBTQ + Staff Network
- Neurodiverse Staff Network
Opportunities to learn and develop through a range of courses, training and apprenticeships, helping colleagues to progress their careers.
Location
Wokingham Borough is set in the heart of Berkshire with excellent transport links to Reading and Central London. Our area comprises of a vibrant and historical market town, attractive villages, and miles of beautiful countryside.
We’re home to a range of high performing schools including 69 primary and 21 secondary, a host of international businesses and an incredible community. We have a strong local economy with accelerated growth, a range of excellent public facilities and low levels of crime, offering an exceptional quality of life.
Over the last five years we’ve been regenerating Wokingham town centre to help deliver our masterplan vision, for an even more vibrant and economically successful town centre. Changes through the regeneration include a new public square with shops, bars and restaurants, homes at Peach Place, cafes, cinema, a supermarket, a hotel, and a landscaped park with destination play area.
Wokingham Borough Council is also aiming to become a Marmot Borough over the next few years.
Why Wokingham?
Susan Parsonage (Chief Executive):
“Wokingham is a fantastic borough comprising of a vibrant and historical market town, attractive villages, beautiful countryside, and an incredible community. We’re set in the heart of Berkshire, with excellent rail and road links to neighbouring towns, as well as central London, the midlands, and the south coast. We’re also home to a range of high performing schools and international businesses, providing a strong local economy with accelerated growth, and offering an exceptional quality of life.”
Learning & Development
We’ll nurture your talents and find the best training methods to suit your needs. You’ll have access to ongoing training to help grow your career.
Opportunities will continue throughout your career and may include:
- Dedicated inhouse support during your Assessed Supported Year in Employment (ASYE)
- Practice Educator training / Systemic Practice/ Trauma Informed
- Innovative ways of working and training such as group supervision and bi-annual practice weeks
- You can also access a wide range of flexible training through our online learning platform and through our partnership with Community Care Inform.
We are proactive and responsive to opportunities for career development. Working with us will make you feel empowered, motivated and valued.
Children's Services
We have innovative, supportive children’s social care teams who work with families to achieve the best outcomes for them and their children. If what we are doing isn’t working, we change it, and our social workers are supported to do this by managers and the senior leadership team.
Read the latest focused visit report to Wokingham Borough Council children’s
services (March 2024).
Career Development
Our aim at Wokingham is to not only ‘Grow our own’ via our highly reputed ASYE programme, it’s also to ‘Keep our Own’!
Wokingham may be one of the smallest local authorities in the country, but that doesn’t stop us from being incredibly focused on personal development. We not only assist with identifying career opportunities for our highly skilled social workers, we have designed a solid path of progression. This enables our social workers to be able to progress to senior social workers after two years post ASYE.
Many of our current managers, ATMs/ TMs and IROs have been with us throughout their career pathways, some even starting off as ASYEs themselves. Our retention rates remain stable amidst the national climate.
Adults Social Care
Adult social care focusses on providing comprehensive person-centred support and care services to adults with eligible needs within the borough. Our aim is to work with our residents to enhance their quality of life, delivering person-centred care that promotes independence, dignity, and well-being.
Our award-winning team of social care professionals love what they do with 91% of them feeling that the work they do makes a real difference to residents and colleagues. People are at the heart of our organisation whether it’s our staff, residents or businesses.
We’re committed to equality across the borough and within our workplace, continually striving to better understand the communities we serve to inform the decisions we make. We pride ourselves on fostering a supportive and inclusive workplace where staff are encouraged to grow professionally through continuous training and development opportunities.
We value diversity and promote a culture where every team member is respected and empowered to make a positive impact. We are always open to new ideas and ways of doing things. We foster an environment where creativity is valued, empowering our staff to drive change through innovative ideas to deliver our services successfully.
We believe that we should all be able to live in the place we call home, with the people and things that we love, in communities where we look out for one another, doing the things that matter to us most. A movement for gloriously ordinary lives.
Our current ambition to become a Marmot borough by focusing on the building blocks of health and well-being to reduce inequalities and increase equity of access to services is a clear demonstration of our commitment to equality and inclusion.
We are also registered for the Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard Improvement Programme and support a variety of staff networks that help us co-produce guidance and policies using their lived experience.
Awards
Wokingham was recognised for four projects in the 2023 MJ awards of which they won an achievement award for two. Winning an MJ Award acknowledges the tremendous effort of those in local government dedicating themselves to supporting local communities, facing challenge after challenge, but never giving up in the face of adversity.
In 2023 Wokingham Borough Council won the MJ award for “Best Social Housing Initiative”.
The Adult Social Care Specialist Accommodation (ASCSA) Programme offers to support Wokingham’s most vulnerable residents to live more safely, confidently, and independently through the development of a range of specialist housing options. It is an ambitious and locally-driven initiative, that has built strong partnerships with landlords and care providers, and delivered for our most vulnerable residents.
Wokingham also won an MJ award for “Innovation in Delivering Sustainability and Social Value”.
The Wokingham town centre regeneration project is an award-winning ambitious project to revitalise Wokingham town centre, through a combined approach of commercial, residential and environmental sustainable development, in parallel with local community and business support and engagement, making it an exciting an thriving place to live.
Jen Daines and Jan Ledbrook both won at The Social Worker of the Year 2023 awards.
Both are team managers and Jen won the silver Adult Social Worker of the Year, and Jan won silver in the Team Leader of the Year for Adult Services.
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