The Child and Family Agency was established on 1st January 2014 and is responsible for a range of statutory functions including provision of child protection, alternative care, specified regulatory services and a range of family support services. The Agency has commenced a major improvement programme with significant focus on Practice, Culture and Structure.
The Agency currently has responsibility for a budget of circa €1.2billion and delivers its services through over 5,500 people in 259 locations across the Country.
The Child and Family Agency has responsibility for the following range of services:
• Child Protection and Welfare
• Parenting, Family Support and Early Help Services

• Alternative Care
• Birth Information & Tracing and Adoption
• Tusla Education Support Services (TESS)
• Children’s Service Regulation
• Counselling and Therapeutic Supports
Further information is available on www.tusla.ie

About Tusla’s Quality and Regulation Directorate

Tusla’s Quality and Regulation Directorate is concerned with promoting continuous improvement and effective risk management in services for children and families. It delivers its functions though the following teams:
Practice Assurance and Performance Systems:
Performance Reporting and Information: Responsible for the collation, analysis and reporting of operational performance and activity data that is required to support accountability and transparency, inform policy development and legislative reform, demonstrate where standards and targets are being met, identify risk and support decision making at all levels of the organisation.
Practice Assurance and Service Monitoring: The team monitors and reports on service delivery against standards, regulations and legislative requirements, and seeks to ensure that service improvement activity takes place in response to reviews.
Service Experience, Governance and Risk Systems:
Service Experience and Feedback: Deals with all aspects of complaints and feedback nationally. It aims to improve how children, parents and carers experience our services. This is achieved through hearing their perspectives, conveying this feedback to the services concerned, and informing changes and improvements which may be required in the way services are delivered and experienced.
Risk and Incident Management: The team is responsible for the corporate risk register, and all aspects of risk and incident management systems within the Agency. The team aims to ensure Tusla is aware of the nature of its risks, their status and how they are being managed.
Children’s Services Regulation:
Early Years’ Inspectorate: The Early Years’ Inspectorate is the independent statutory regulator of Early Years’ Services and is responsible for registering and inspecting pre-schools, playgroups, crèches, day care, school age care and similar services. Its role is to promote the quality, safety and appropriate care of children by robust regulation of the sector.
Alternative Education Assessment: Responsible for the regulation of provision for education inplaces other than recognised schools. Its function is to assess the suitability of applications against ministerial guidance in order to determine if a child can be placed on the statutory register of children educated outside of a recognised school.
Alternative Care Regulation: The team monitors and reports on alternative care settings for children who cannot live with their families. The service is responsible currently for the registration and inspection of non-statutory residential care settings for young people, as well as the monitoring and audit of non-statutory foster care providers.
Child Safeguarding Statement Compliance Unit (CSSCU)
The CSSCU has a national centralised function for the receipt and processing of referrals and notifications of failure to furnish Tusla with a copy of a relevant agency’s safeguarding statement made under Article 12(1) of the Children First Act 2015. The office is also responsible for appropriately supporting relevant agencies to achieve compliance under section 12 (1) – (5) of the legislation.
The Regulatory Practice & Development Team
The Regulatory Practice Development Team is responsible for a range of functions to provide support to Children’s Services Regulation. There are five distinct functions which are; management and analysis of data and business process design and re-design, implementation and maintenance of the Quality Management system across Children’s Services Regulation, co-ordination and delivery of Learning and Development, provision of expert advice and guidance on matters relating to children attending early years services and management of Children’s Services Regulation communications which includes the website and the publication of inspection reports.

Main Duties and Responsibilities
• Support the ongoing collection and reporting of operational performance and activity data.
• Support the development and implementation of enhancements to existing data collection and reporting processes and systems within the Quality and Regulation Directorate.
• Identify areas to increase efficiency and automation of data collection processes within the Directorate.

• Assist in the development of business processes and procedures to support and manage the data reporting environment.
• Work closely with colleagues in the ICT Directorate to prepare data for publishing on the Agency’s website (Tusla Data Hub) and under the Government’s Open Data Strategy.
• Be responsible for delivery of various work projects as agreed with the National Manager for Performance Reporting.
• Contribute as appropriate to the ongoing development of a proposed operating model for Business Analytics and provide support – as required – to this developing capability within the Agency. 

Analysis and Reporting
• Manipulate and analyse data relating to the business of the Agency.
• Identify patterns and trends in the data and draw inferences and insights for presentation to senior management.
• Contribute to design and development of interactive dashboards for the visualisation of performance and activity data using data visualisation software. Produce high quality structured and ad hoc reports and presentations within tight timeframes for internal and external audiences.
• Contribute to the preparation of the Agency’s annual report and other national reports as required.
• Contribution to the provision of data for parliamentary questions, FOI requests, media queries and any other data requests, as appropriate.
Data Quality and Governance
• Ensure validation and verification of data for performance reporting.
• Support the development of new metrics and key performance indicators.
• Support the work of relevant committees and associated sub-groups, including the Tusla Metrics Group and Business Analytics Governance Group.
• Build and maintain knowledge of emerging business/industry trends and innovations to help shape the future direction of performance measurement and reporting and other related areas.
General
• Assist in the preparation of the Quality and Regulation Directorate objectives for the Tusla Corporate Plan and annual Business Plan.
• Work as part of a team to deliver on the Directorate’s goals and objectives
• Prioritise business needs and work closely with management of information needs
• Establish and maintain effective communication and working relationships with colleagues in the Quality and Regulation Directorate and in other Directorates, as appropriate.
• Active participation in cross-Directorate collaborative work/committees
• Support and deputise as required for line manager

Human Resources
• Manage the performance of assigned staff and promote staff development to maximise potential in line with organisation goals and person attributes and ability.
• Undertake all duties assigned in line with relative policy, procedure and legislation.
• Maintain continuous personal development and participate in team-based development, education, training and learning.
• Complete all mandatory training.
• Where appropriate, arrange for the induction and training for assigned staff, as required to maximise skill resources
Health & Safety
• Comply with and contribute to the development of policies, procedures, guidelines and safe professional practice and adhere to relevant legislation, regulations and standards.
• Have a working knowledge of the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) Standards as they apply to the service for example National Standards for Child Protection and Care and comply with associated Tusla – Child and Family Agency protocols for implementing and maintaining these standards as appropriate to the role.
• To support, promote and actively participate in sustainable energy, water and waste initiatives to create a more sustainable, low carbon and efficient health service.
The above Job Description is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all duties involved and consequently, the post holder may be required to perform other duties as appropriate to the post which may be assigned to him/her from time to time and to contribute to the development of the post while in office.

Applicants must by the closing date of application have the following:
• Hold a third-level qualification in mathematics, computer science, statistics, business information management, data analytics or other relevant discipline.
• Have a minimum of 3 years’ experience in a data analyst / data manager / performance reporting role.
• Have knowledge and experience of technology and data management techniques used in the process of collecting, storing and retrieving data.
• Have a demonstrated track record in implementing data collection and reporting systems within a complex human services organisation.
• Have knowledge and experience of using business intelligence tools/data visualisation software (e.g. Microsoft Power BI).
• Have excellent oral and written communication skills, with experience of preparation and delivery of written reports and presentations.
• Have knowledge and experience of using project management tools and techniques.

Health
A candidate for and any person holding the office must be fully competent and capable of undertaking the duties attached to the office and be in a state of health such as would indicate a reasonable prospect of ability to render regular and efficient service.
Character
Each candidate for and any person holding the office must be of good character.