Early Years And Childcare Business Management Consultant

Early Yearsand Childcare Business Management Consultant

Fixed Term, Full Time

Up to £47,213 per annum

Location: Harlow

Working Style: Anywhere worker

Closing Date: 25th February 2024

Please note this role will be operational across Harlow, Epping Forest and Uttlesford with a mixture of visiting childcare settings, virtual teams meetings and some building based work and working from home.

Please note this is a fixed term opportunity up to 2 years.

The Role

Essex County Council (ECC) is one of the largest and most dynamic local authorities in the UK, serving a population of 2 million residents, and has a very successful track record of delivering transformational change. ECC anticipated change was needed in the public sector and has worked to deliver better quality at lower cost. We have an ambitious transformation agenda - one with the scope to reach every part of the council. We are changing the way we think, the way we work, and the ways in which we deliver our services. We are committed to becoming a place where individuals, partners and communities feel proud to play their role and genuinely want to belong. We're immensely proud of our flexible working options.

The Opportunity

This role will work as part of the Early Years and Childcare (EYCC) Sufficiency and Sustainability team, contributing to the Strategy, Planning and Performance change management programme, ensuring the EYCC service deliver and embed a culture of continuous improvement. The focus is to provide a business consultancy service to support small businesses and Childcare providers within the voluntary and private sectors to improve the sustainability and continuity of the EYCC sector. This will enable access to affordable early education and Childcare places, contributing to the Council's statutory sufficiency objectives. It centres on providing advice and guidance to ensure providers have the requisite management and financial business skills to enable them to function as viable businesses and achieve long term sustainability. As an experienced manager you will utilise business acumen to challenge both the thinking and approach to delivering improvements, able to operate in a matrix environment.

Accountabilities

Provide Business Management advice, support and guidance to the EYCC sector ensuring able to increase the number of childcare providers underpinned by the ability to deliver robust and informed business plans.

Contribute to a greater awareness amongst potential childcare providers of available revenue and capital funding to ensure they maintain sufficient, high quality affordable childcare across the county that meets parental demand.

Lead the development of a sustainable and universal offer to the EYCC sector, by developing a range of relevant and accessible information to ensure both the sector and individuals benefit from training, development and knowledge to improve their understanding of how funding operates.

Contribute to the development of the childcare place growth strategy to grow the number of childcare places available in Essex through advice, guidance and support to the sector to ensure a robust understanding and knowledge for setting up a new Childcare Business and accessing funding

Develop and implement plans as defined within the SPP strategy to ensure able to deliver a rapid respond within an agreed timescale to support EYCC with business sustainability issues as part of a wider childcare sufficiency plan.

Support EYCC in developing business cases to support changes to the Free Early Education Entitlement funding, such as the Extended Entitlement and in particular, ensure adequate support for providers that have received an Ofsted decision to improve.

Conduct regular analysis of term time data to ensure sufficient quality of childcare and proposing solutions and recommendations for continuous improvement, and implementing agreed plans within agreed timeframes.

Identify a programme of business support training to ensure it delivers to a high quality and best value as part of EYCC's income generation plan.

Specific individual and shared targets and objectives are defined annually within the performance management framework.

The Experience You Will Bring

• Degree in a relevant business or finance related subject or equivalent by experience in a childcare or similar small business sector
• Knowledge and experience of using MS tools ie word, excel and powerpoint
• Broad experience and a sound overview of Business Management skills with hands-on experience of business planning, basic financial management/cash flow forecasting and basic marketing planning.
• Sound knowledge and understanding of the issues facing the small-business owner/manager. Practical experience of business issues is more important than formal academic attainment
• Experience of Partnership working with diverse organisations
• Experience and understanding of both the EYCC and the voluntary sector and particularly an understanding of the difficulties experienced by some organisations in adopting 'business' practices.
• Hands-on experience of umbrella funding mechanisms and those applicable for individual organisations and groups of Partnerships

To read more about us please visit: Education

Please note that the job role requires you to be mobile throughout an operational area. Therefore, the post holder will need to have a driving licence and access to a vehicle, or the ability to meet the mobility requirements of the role through other means.

Why Essex? Essex County Council has a location to be proud of. Our 1,300 square miles stretch from Constable Country to the Thames Estuary, from the dynamic M11 corridor to the traditional seaside resorts of Clacton and Walton. England's oldest town, Colchester, and two of its newest - Basildon and Harlow - are right here. Along with the City of Chelmsford, the county town, they form our major population centres. It means real choice and makes Essex the ideal place for your career. Read more about us.

Essex County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We're committed to interview all disabled applicants who choose to apply under our Job Interview Scheme if they meet the minimum requirements of the job. Please speak to our Recruiters if you require any reasonable adjustments during the process.

We're also committed to interview all veterans and care leavers, who meet the minimum requirements of the role for which they are applying.

What you should do next

If you are interested in finding out more about this role, we would love to hear from you. Please apply via the Working for Essex website.

As part of employment with Essex County Council (ECC) should your role require a DBS check you will be required to register with the DBS update service. The DBS update service ensures all registered DBS certificates are kept up to date and allows authorised parties to view the status of your certificate. This is an annual subscription, and you will be responsible for ensuring this is maintained. For further information on the DBS update service please go to https://www.gov.uk/dbs-update-service

Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

If you would like to be kept up to date on other relevant opportunities, blogs, news, events and industry related news at Essex County Council, please join The Essex Talent Community

If you have queries on this role or require anything further, please email resourcing.team@essex.gov.uk.

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