International Women's Day Staff Profile

As we near International Women’s Day 2025, we have been speaking to some of the inspiring women in our organisation to learn a little bit about their careers and their work in the Vale.

This week, we caught up with Victoria Davidson, the Council’s Monitoring Officer and Head of Legal and Democratic Services.

Firstly, would you mind walking us through your career path, and how you ended up working for the Vale of Glamorgan Council?

"I used to practice in the private sector, so I've had quite a broad range of roles within that, starting with criminal law. I took on criminal defence work for a private firm, so I used to represent people at the police station when they were arrested as well as in the courts, and I have dealt with some quite big Crown Court cases.

"From there, I had a family, and as both of my children were quite young at the time, I decided in between maternity leave and breaks, working in criminal litigation wouldn’t sit well with looking after a young family as I would sometimes have to go out to police stations late at night and had to be on call.

"I stayed at the same firm for a while and worked in a couple of different areas – I did some property and contract work, as well as some probate work and I suppose this eventually led to my progression into local government.

"I started a practice in family law – so divorce and ancillary private family law with my own client base. That then developed into representing clients in relation to public family law – so essentially representing parents whose children had been taken into the care of the local authority, or where the local authority were not acting as a corporate parent under a care order, but they had safeguarding concerns in relation to the parenting of those children.

"In around 2007, I decided that I had taken my career in the private sector as far as I could, and I didn’t think the next step for me was right in terms of going into a partnership. There were a lot of changes being made to legal aid rates at the time and you do get to a point when you work in the private sector where you're having to meet cost targets, and my cost target was three and a half times my salary and it's very much a churn.

"I applied for the job in the Vale of Glamorgan Council and I joined the Community Services team. At this point, I has started to act on behalf of the other side and I was dealing with a caseload in relation to children and young people under social services. Where there were either child protection concerns, children being taken into care, and in some cases, a child being made subject to an adoption order or being placed for adoption.

"That was primarily my line of work between 2007 and 2013, with a couple of additional responsibilities - including some social care work.

"In 2013, my predecessor left the role of Operational Manager for Legal Services and I was suggested to be put forward for that role. It was then a case of managing three legal teams and the committee services team. As the years progressed, I also took on responsibility for the electoral services team as my then Head of Service was the returning officer for the Council at the time.

"Then in 2023, I was working in my current position on an interim basis, and during that time my predecessor found a position elsewhere and I applied for the role that I’m in today."

Coming from what might have previously been considered a male-dominated field working in law, how did you navigate that?

"I'm of a different generation - an older generation - and I suppose being honest, you had to adapt your behaviours and obviously maintaining your professionalism in some circumstances, which sometimes was quite challenging.

"In my experience – and this is a generalisation – I used to do a lot of work with the police, and the culture I would say at that time was significantly different. I’ve always maintained professionalism, and I’ve always been able to deal with a diverse range of individuals.

"It was a male-dominated field, but as a qualified solicitor I was able to get on with the job and treat everybody the same. But you know, there was a time when I look back when I was in my mid to late 20’s, it was quite challenging.

"I think some of those earlier experiences made me quite robust and quite adaptable when I’m dealing with people, and I guess those experiences inform how you work now. It’s not something I spend a lot of time thinking about these days and certainly when I came to work for the Vale, it had a completely different culture."

What advice would you give - as someone who is now in a senior leadership position - to someone who is just at the beginning of their career?

"I suppose it's about being genuine, being honest, being kind to yourself really. Being truthful to yourself and to recognise that you know you're going to have limits too.

"Everybody has their limits for certain things, and some days are going to feel good and then the next day you might wish you’d have done something differently. 

"I suppose what I've learnt now in the years I've been practicing is to not dwell too much on what you might perceive as being mistakes - which often are actually learning experiences – you’ll know to do better, better your performance and better your interactions with people.

"I think for women - and I think it's equally applicable to men too - but I think women do tend to carry this sort of imposter syndrome feeling with them. I think that isn't unique to women and I think men experience it as well, but I think in a large organisation where there's sort of competing pressures of work, the key is to work collaboratively.

"Whether it's across your team service, across the directorate or, the whole of the council even - it is just do the best job you can and be the best version of yourself.

"You can get so much satisfaction from working in the public sector. I know it comes with its benefits compared to the private sector and there are benefits in the private sector too. But actually, you gain that ability to take pride in your work - from delivering legal advice to supporting members – the work that we undertake, you can make a difference.

"For me, it's more interesting and you can see the tangible benefits and outcomes when it come to the public sector – there’s more value in it than not."

Lastly, what sort of things do you like do to unwind after work?

"I do lots of walking and I try and get to the gym as much as I can. I like to swim and I like to read and cook too.

"I also really enjoy seeing friends, and you know, going to concerts. It's been really tricky in the last year and a half because I was covering another role, but I’ll have more time soon to be able to build in some time for myself again and try and build some work/life balance going foward as that’s really important."