Gillian’s department is the largest in the Council with a revenue budget for 2009/10 of £368.4 million and a capital investment of £96 million for the period 2009/13. Her 9,000 staff and teachers, in more than 250 different establishments across the city, provide crucial services for the city’s children and their families in the areas of learning and teaching for young people and adults, and residential care and social work services for children and young people.
Her challenging portfolio of responsibilities includes:
- ensuring that over 3,000 young people, aged three to five, have access to 18 nursery schools, 78 nursery classes in primary schools, two nursery classes in a special school, 12 Health and Social Care centres, and the Council’s workplace nursery
- over 1,500 teachers providing learning and teaching to over 24,000 pupils in over 90 primary schools, and over 1,700 teachers providing learning and teaching to over 19,000 pupils at 23 secondary schools
- over 700 pupils who have special needs are catered for in our special schools and classes
- around 40 community centres providing a range of learning, teaching and support services to residents of the city
- social work practice and hospital-based teams providing help and services to vulnerable young persons and their families
- our family-based care service recruits and providing support to foster/day carers and prospective adoptive parents across the city, providing supportive home environment for over 400 children in foster care
- over 200 children benefit from the services provided at 12 child and family centres around the city each month
- over 100 residential care places are provided for children in young person centres, two secure accommodation units, four close support units and a unit which provides respite care for about 70 young people.
Personal profile
- Trained as a primary school teacher in Hampshire in 1980, Gillian taught in the New Forest
- Trained and worked as an educational psychologist in Humberside, Birmingham, Hereford and Worcester
- Prior to coming to Edinburgh, she worked in Oxfordshire County Council for 14 years in a number of roles including Head of Children and Young People, Head of Special Needs and Principal Psychologist
- CoSLA representative on the programme board for the early years framework
Director of Services for Children and Families Current salary (2009/10)
£137,244
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