Jobs

About Us:

Help put children first by finding the right care solutions for those that need them

In Kensington and Chelsea, we put local people at the heart of decision-making, working in partnership with them to provide quality services that are responsive, effective and efficient. We work in a Bi-Borough partnership with Westminster City council to deliver Children’s services. By sharing our facilities and expertise, we’re able to offer joined-up services as a large multi-agency team that puts children first.

You’ll be joining a Children’s Operations and Programmes Directorate that challenges the status quo, drives transformation, innovation and improvement and delivers service led positive change. We look after the interests of children whose needs are high and our role is crucial in changing their lives for the better. We are proud of our outstanding rating with Ofsted and want to keep it that way by ensuring we continue to deliver an outstanding service. You’ll help us do just that.

The Role:

You will be leading a team to identify and make placements to support complex and specialist care packages, to prescribed timeframes, budget and quality. You will provide management and support to a small team of Transformation Leads and Service Development Officers. You’ll also be tasked with commissioning and monitoring children’s and young people’s placements to ensure high quality outcomes and value for money and leading on service improvement activity. Along the way, we’ll also rely on you to provide support, advice and information to care managers, providers, clients and carers and seek innovative and imaginative care solutions for our service users.

Safeguarding is a high priority, and you will ensure that direct reports are aware of their responsibilities and that issues are recognised and escalated as appropriate. You will also provide budget projections and forecasting of spend. We’ll count on you to bring a commissioning perspective to various panels, negotiate placements and lead cross-functional project teams to ensure positive outcomes. Whether constructing detailed business cases or developing and maintaining provider/commissioner partnerships, your ability to drive and manage.

Please refer to the Job Description for more information.

About You:

To be successful in this role you’ll have proven experience:

• commissioning, contract management or managing placement functions within a local authority or charity
• leading teams and guiding others to deliver good outcomes and to work at a senior level in a complex environment working with public, charity and private sector organisations.
• delivering value for money, a track record of working successfully with suppliers and good knowledge of the principles of contract management.
• managing budgets and finance with an excellent attention to detail enabling accurate and robust forecasting, as well as experience of managing commercial relationships, developing supplier markets and negotiating fees.
• managing contractor quality and overseeing systems to provide assurance of good service, identifying and address poor performance, and achieving service improvements.

Pursuing creative ideas to provide solutions to complex problems comes naturally to you too. What’s more, you have the confidence and leadership skills to influence complex stakeholder landscapes. You’re great at co-ordinating programmes and projects, while your innovative and imaginative approach enables you to identify new and credible options and solutions for service development.

Put simply, you’re an inspiring individual who knows how to build inclusive and high-performing teams and is comfortable working in a senior strategic role in a large and complex organisation.

In return, you can look forward to a package that includes a competitive salary, a high-quality pension scheme and generous annual leave plus bank holidays.

Please apply online, specifying in your personal statement/cover letter how you meet the criteria as set out in the Person Specification.

Additional information

We are committed to promoting equality and respecting diversity and welcome applications from all sections of the community.

We are a Disability Confident Employer – committed to ensuring that our recruitment and selection process is inclusive and accessible.

We engage our staff with a variety of learning types including face-to-face and virtual learning because we want to ensure our staff understand our values and behaviours, grow their skills and develop their careers.

This post is covered by the Fluency Duty, as outlined in the Code of Practice on the English language requirements for public sector workers.

We do not accept speculative CVs from any source.

Please note, we will primarily contact candidates by e-mail throughout the recruitment process, please monitor your email junk / spam folder as our system generated emails may be allocated to these folders by your email settings.

If you experience difficulties with the recruitment application process, please contact the recruitment team by email: recruitment@rbkc.gov.uk