Commissioning Officer - Send

About the role

We have an exciting opportunity to join the Children’s Commissioning Team, for a permanent position, as a Commissioning Officer, supporting the commissioning of services for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).

This is an exciting time for the Commissioning Directorate in Cambridgeshire where we have the rare opportunity to establish the service in a new and innovative manner. 

This role will be focused on commissioning, contract monitoring and quality assurance of Independent Special Education Provisions (ISEPs), Out of School Tuition (OoST) and Post-16 Alternative Education Provision, improving the outcomes for the children and young people with SEND and those with Education, Health & Care Plans (EHCPs).  

For more information or to chat about this opportunity please contact Okailey.dua@cambridgeshire.gov.uk .

Interviews are planned for week commencing 1/7/24.

What will you be doing?

This role will involve working on projects supporting the SEND Transformation programme. Your focus will also be on working with Independent Special Education Provisions (ISEPs), Out of School Tuition (OoST) and Post-16 Alternative Education Provision commissioned by the team.

Your key responsibilities will include: 

·         Quality assurance of these services. 

·         Contract management of these Services. 

·         To work with the market to grow and develop safe and high-quality provision that drive improvements and positive outcomes.

·         To be accountable for all spending being in line with budgets set, and ensure efficiencies are achieved as required.

About you

You are passionate about making a difference to the lives of children, young people and families with SEND. Have a positive outlook, enthusiastic attitude and solution-focused mindset.

You will ideally have some existing knowledge of and experience improving outcomes for children and young people with SEND. 

You will ideally have some experience of commissioning services in social care or education. You will have some understanding of the commissioning cycle and will have some experience of managing contracts as well as Quality Assurance.  

You will have excellent communication and interpersonal skills and will have experience of multi-agency working.

You will be skilled in report writing, good analytical skills, as well as organisational and planning skills.

You will be able to work on your own initiative and will be confident managing your time and setting your own priorities. 

Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service. The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Our benefits

We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits:

• Flexible working
• Flexible Bank Holidays
• A comprehensive wellbeing package
• Our Cambs Rewards employee discounts
• A comprehensive pension scheme.
• IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network.
• Camweb our staff intranet helping to keep you informed
• An employee recognition scheme

About us

Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes.

Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do.

We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities. If you don’t meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don’t be put off.   We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self-organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered.  We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager, whose details can be found in the advert, to discuss any adjustment needs. Some examples of adjustments could include additional time to complete an assessment or printing a document on pastel coloured paper with larger font size and line spacing. We would value talking about what might be possible to enable you to join us and thrive, so if there is something that would help you to do your best during your journey with us, please get in touch.

Visit our jobs and careers section to find out more about our wide range of learning and development opportunities; apprenticeships; our wellbeing package; staff benefits; our commitment to equality, diversity and Inclusion. 

https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/council/jobs-and-careers

Attached documents

• Job Description - Commissioning Officer CCC .pdf