The Place

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) is the UK’s newest city region and it’s brimming with prospects, positivity and pride. We are the tenth-largest urban local authority in England and our communities are vibrant and diverse, with an outstanding quality of life, where everyone plays an active role. We are a globally recognised coastline of opportunity, where people love to live, learn, work, explore, invent and relax.

With over 15 miles of our beautiful, world renowned coastline, we have been awarded 21 Blue Flag or seaside awards.

The area has excellent transport links with 658 miles of roads. We have excellent rail and road connections nationally and to London and international flights from Bournemouth Airport.

BCP is a great place to bring your family with a higher-than-average number of schools rated Good and Outstanding by Ofsted.

We employ more than 5,000 people and provides services to around 400,000 residents from Hamworthy in the west to Highcliffe in the east. It has the twelfth largest resident population of any council in England. This scale means a higher percentage of our budget can be spent on frontline services.

We have a diverse population covering a broad range of ages, with a more ageing population in the east and a younger demographic in the west. There is a large Polish and Jewish community, and a variety of faith groups. Bournemouth is host to a large language school community. There is an established LGBT community, and the area hosts Bourne Free, an annual festival to celebrate diversity.

We’re bold, confident and proud about our organisation, our area and our future.

By working for us you can play a part in delivering the essential public services that improve lives and protect the most vulnerable in our community.

Starting or developing your career in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole are will mean that you can help shape our ambitious priorities and make changes happen that will improve lives and protect the most vulnerable in our society.

Nearly 50% of our employees in social care jobs work flexibly and in a recent survey 83% of our employees felt that their manager was considerate of their home life.

Working For Us

See Tammy from the Children and Families First team talk about how her team works and why the work they do is important:

Full induction and regular training

We offer a structured approach with supported orientation, shadowing opportunities as well as classroom based training and mentoring.

Manageable and diverse caseloads

We will work with you to ensure there is a balanced approach to managing your caseload so that it is not about numbers.

Continuing professional development

You will be encouraged to develop your skills through training, group supervision and reflective practice workshops. We work closely with Bournemouth University within our Teaching Partnership which has a well-established post-qualifying programme of learning that we support our practitioners to take advantage of. This supports career development and dedicated CPD time is available.

Quality reflective supervision

Dedicated and regular 1:1 supervision with your professional line manager; group supervision and annual appraisals.

Recruitment payment

This scheme offers joining experienced social workers a one-off £3,000 payment (pro-rata).

Open communication

We have open communication between senior leadership and front line practitioners through our Progress Forum. We value our workforce and discuss and problem solve together.

Our Employee Assistance Programme

An Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) is a confidential employee benefit available to all BCP Council colleagues designed to help you deal with personal and professional problems that could be affecting your home life or work life, health and general wellbeing. Our EAP service, provided in partnership with Health Assured and offers a complete support network with expert advice and compassionate guidance 24/7, covering a wide range of issues.

You can find out more about the benefits of working for us.