Join us

The Civic Offices are in the heart of Reading town centre and provide flexible state-of-the-art facilities.

Through our values, we offer an open and supportive culture where we are committed to providing effective supervision, including guaranteed supervision time, safe workloads and strong, supportive leadership.

We listen to all staff and, through the Staff Involvement Group and ‘Leadership Listening’ events, we create a high quality, professional partnership to support vulnerable children.

We have a dynamic Children’s Social Care practice framework, which is highly valued by frontline workers and managers.

Across the Company, we strive to offer everyone the chance and opportunity to progress their careers and, where possible, to see job vacancies before they’re advertised externally.

We recognise the richness and diversity of our workforce in many ways. We have staff groups, such as the LGBT+ Network, an anti-racist group, a group for staff living with disabilities and other support groups, such as the menopause group.

We have staff get togethers frequently where we encourage staff to bring in dishes from around the world. They’re great fun but you have to get there early, or all the delicious food is gone!

We have a lot of overseas staff working for us and we do our utmost to make them feel welcome from day one.

Staff feedback 

Recent feedback from one social worker was that she felt ‘at home’ and ‘loved working at BFfC’.

Another said that everyone was ‘kind and supportive, looking out for me, which has helped me settle more quickly than I anticipated’.

An experienced social worker said he felt ‘supported and understood’ by his managers, who allow him the ‘independence and freedom to take the lead’ and he praised BFfC’s approach to work/life balance and managing childcare.

Another social worker said: ‘BFfC is supportive and welcoming towards people from different backgrounds. This works for us and the families we work with as well.’

In roles across the Company, our work helps with better outcomes for children, young people and their families across Reading. You can see real examples of this in practice on our Brighter outcomes web page, which highlights our outcome-focused actions which embody our values.

We are located in the centre of Reading just outside the Oracle shopping centre and within easy reach of the main Reading Train Station (10 mins walk).

Buses to and from Reading town centre are plentiful (there’s a stop right outside the main offices) and there is secure bicycle parking. We have a bike scheme where you can buy or hire a new bike via a salary sacrifice scheme and we offer staff season train and bus ticket loans and discounted travel with Reading Buses.

We offer free onsite parking for some essential frontline roles and you can use residents’ parking spaces for home visits (subject to filling in the right forms!). We also have electric vehicle charging points you can apply to use, as well as electric cars you can use for work purposes.

Car leasing scheme

One of our more recent but excellent staff benefits is the new car leasing scheme, which gives you access to a wide range of brand-new vehicles. Order a brand-new car with an all-inclusive package, which comes straight from your gross salary, so you save on National Insurance and pension savings. Not only do you get a shiny new car, everything is included in a fixed monthly amount.

We offer a generous holiday entitlement – a minimum of 26 days a year (plus bank holidays), increasing by one day each year for the first 5 years of local government service, rising to 33 days after 10 years’ service. We also offer the opportunity to buy annual leave should you wish to. We honour leave entitlement if you join us from another local authority or an organisation which meets the requirements for continuous service.

We provide a range of family friendly provisions catering from 0-18 years including maternity, paternity, and parental, adoption and fostering leave. We also recognise that at times you may have caring responsibilities for other dependants and provide other leave in addition to career breaks.

Kennet Day Nursery is Reading Borough Council’s workplace day nursery situated in the Civic Offices in Reading town centre. The nursery is easily accessible by car, train or bus.

Rated Outstanding by Ofsted in 2020, Kennet offers high quality day care for children aged three months to five years. The nursery is open to children who have a parent or guardian working for Brighter Futures for Children or for Reading Borough Council and is also open to other public sector workers. However, BFfC and RBC staff have priority access and discounted rates.

The nursery is open from 8am – 6pm and offers full and part time sessions with a minimum of three sessions per week. Demand for a place at the nursery is very high so it is strongly recommended that you place your name on the waiting list at the earliest possible time.

Kennet accepts all childcare vouchers and offers 30 hours funding to eligible families stretched across the full year.

For more information, please contact the nursery manager Ita McGullion on 0118 937 2509 or email: kennetdaynursery@reading.gov.uk

We also offer childcare vouchers which you can use to pay for childcare from 0-16 years, plus ‘Reading rates’ for play clubs/schemes.

We offer our employees a range of discounts and deals at a wide range of major high street retailers, restaurants, family activities, and travel companies through a comprehensive rewards and benefits platform. Employees can even nominate their local business or favourite high street store, which are not already on the platform, to be included.

The platform includes a digital discount card which can earn you discounts at venues in your local area and across the UK.

You will have access to the Local Government Pension Scheme which will provide you with an income in retirement, payable for life and may give your loved ones financial security in the event of your death or ill health.

Our scheme is known as a Defined Benefit pension scheme. The benefits you build up are based on a Career Average Revalued Earnings (CARE) basis.

It is a very secure scheme because the benefits are set out in law. This means that your pension earned each year is based on your actual pensionable pay received in each scheme year (1 April to 31 March) and not on the contributions you pay.

You will be admitted to the scheme automatically from your first day of employment. You pay in a percentage of your salary and we will also pay a percentage depending on your salary level.

You can also opt to pay in Additional Voluntary Contributions to improve your pension (see next section). Once you pass through the qualifying period, you will get death in service benefit to the value of three times your salary and have access to a Credit Union.

We understand how important it is to prepare for the future and one way of doing this is by making extra contributions to your pension fund through Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs). Our employees can make additional voluntary contributions via a salary sacrifice scheme, saving them money through less tax and national insurance deductions.

A skilled workforce is paramount to our success. To ensure our employees are set up for success, BFfC encourages them to seek out learning opportunities through experience.

Learning from others is also supported in the business, from coaching moments to peer-to-peer learning. We offer a wide range of courses that build upon personal strengths as well as enhancing professional knowledge.

We want all employees to feel supported at every stage of their career, ensuring they have the right knowledge, skills, and behaviours to operate successfully in their role. We also actively encourage staff to develop themselves for future roles so we can grow our own talent in-house.

Our Employee Assistance Programme offers advice on issues such as consumer and statutory rights, state benefits, landlord and tenant problems, dealing with noisy neighbours and tackling debt.

The programme is available to all staff and provides telephone access to a range of advice, information and personal support including counselling and dealing with stress, relationship problems, bereavement or improving your assertiveness skills.

We offer discounts on healthcare benefits such as a health care cash plan.

We encourage health and wellbeing through ample cycle facilities and we have  lockers, showers and drying facilities at the Civic Offices.

When it comes to the social side of things, we have lots going on. Our Staff Club runs a range of events like pub quizzes and theatre trips and we have lots of discounts available to staff for local sports, leisure and retail activities.

And let’s not forget our Brighter Rewards scheme, which offers you discounts on lots of local retail stores (and online), as well as in some food outlets.

We are committed to helping our staff balance work and home life by offering an agile way of working.

You may want to avoid peak travel times, care for an elderly relative, extend your UK holiday, watch your child in the school play or work outside of Reading. You may choose to base yourself at home most days with occasional visits to the office, or you may want to work from a café or other location.  We encourage our staff to work in an agile way which works for them and for the company.

To us, agile working is about give and take. We expect everybody to take responsibility for ensuring their work is completed on time and to high standards. We know that at times, staff will put in extra effort to get the job done, so we will do what we can to help them balance their home demands with work.

Our main aim is to deliver the best possible opportunities for the children of Reading. The goal of agile working is to create a responsive, efficient and effective organisation based on more balanced, motivated, innovative and productive teams and individuals.

As a Fostering Friendly employer Brighter Futures for Children (BFfC) is able to give it’s staff who foster children and young people extra support.

BFfC launched the scheme, which is accredited by The Fostering Network, in recognition of the valuable contribution foster carers make to our society and especially the lives of children in care in Reading.

Brighter Futures for Children has its own Independent Fostering Agency and is actively seeking foster carers from within Reading.

If you’d like to know more about fostering visit www.readingfostering.co.uk