Sanctuary Personnel, a leading recruitment company to the private and public sector has a locum vacancy for a Social Work Children’s Placement Commissioning Manager to work based in Wembley.
The pay rate for this locum Children’s Placement Commissioning Manager job is £350 per day and is an initial 3-month contract.
Duties:
- Have operational responsibility for the placement commissioning and resources team (CRT), discharging statutory and non-statutory duties for children, young people and their families
- Ensure that Looked After Children in Brent are safe and have the best chance to succeed through securing outcomes focused placements that meet the needs of individual children with complex vulnerabilities, including Looked After Children and Care Leavers, in line with Safeguarding and Quality Assurance statutory guidance protocols
- Take responsibility and accountability for ensuring the service area achieves its strategic plans by promoting an appropriate culture, empowering others and demonstrating high practice standards
- Develop, shape and deliver an overarching programme of placement commissioning to meet the needs of children and young people, and to ensure the LA has access to sufficient and appropriate high quality placements to meet their needs, working closely with carers, children and young people
- Take an operational and strategic lead for all CYP placement commissioning, contracting and market management activity, ensuring this is undertaken with key internal and external stakeholders, including children and young people and market providers to develop and deliver high quality services
- Deliver a robust quality assurance and safeguarding programme for all placement commissioned activity
- Lead the provision of a flexible, high-quality, cost-effective and efficient Children’s placement commissioning service ensuring that commissioning and quality assurance activities comply with legislation and regulation and the Council’s policies and procedures and take responsibility for effective budget monitoring / delivery of value for money
- Contribute to the overall management of the CYP Commissioning Service and the wider Forward Planning, Performance and Partnership Service and deputise as necessary for the Commissioning and Market Insight Manager and Head of Service
- Responsible and accountable for the commissioning of CYP placements and related services, including delivery of the end-to-end commissioning and contracting cycle (identification of suitable placements, contract negotiation and issue, payment of providers and monitoring placement quality), developing new approaches to improve service performance
- Directly manage staff in the Commissioning and Resources Team, ensuring they take a flexible and adaptable approach to deliver all stages of the commissioning and contracting cycle, including performance management of staff where necessary
- Strategically lead decision-making on the commissioning of placements and related support services to meet the requirements of individual children with complex needs and vulnerabilities, including Looked after Children and Care Leavers, children in need of protection, those at risk of CSE, radicalisation or exploitation, ensuring that the service is child centred and placements are appropriate for a child’s cultural diversity
Requirements of the Children’s Placement Commissioning Manager:
- CQSW, or Diploma in Social Work
- Registered on Social Work England
- Management experience
- Willing to undertake an enhanced DBS check
- Evidence of significant relevant Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
- An in-depth knowledge of the delivery of services to looked after children and their families/carers and a good understanding of the national/local policy environment
- Thorough knowledge of the relevant legislative framework for looked after children
- Extensive knowledge of the evidence about what makes for good quality practice in working with children and families to safeguard children and promote their welfare/positive outcomes
- Extensive knowledge of the principles of, and cycle of commissioning, contract monitoring and/or market management
- Knowledge of signs of safety and other practice approaches
- Extensive knowledge of care planning and permanence planning for children
- Ability to demonstrate the application of relevant theory and research to practice
- Proven track record of achievement at a management level in a similarly large and complex organisation
- Extensive experience of leading the development, mobilisation and delivery of commissioning strategies for children and young people
- Experience of providing effective support and challenge to senior officers, including Service Manager, and social workers as well as providers in delivering placement services and risk management
- Experience of discharging statutory requirements effectively
- Significant post-qualifying social work experience at a management level including statutory work with children and their families
- Broad experience of leading and managing a team
- A proven track record of embedding an effective engagement strategy and framework to meaningfully engage children and young people in commissioning activity
- Broad experience of developing and embedding effective mechanisms to manage and develop the market – leading work with providers to shape and develop the market locally on a large scale and with individual suppliers
- Experience of undertaking price negotiations with providers and managing difficult conversations
- Evidence of success in taking a strategic lead in the development, implementation and monitoring of a broad range of commissioned placement services for children and young people
Benefits of working for Sanctuary Personnel:
- Daily payroll
- Free DBS and compliance service
- Access to exclusive roles that aren't available with other agencies
- Your own dedicated consultant with extensive social work knowledge
- Refer a Friend bonus - get £250 for each social worker you refer who we successfully place after 100 hours of work has been completed
- Find your own job bonus - Receive £250 for bringing your own position to us
- Clinical governance support with a specialist safeguarding team
- In-house payroll system
- Free digital copy of the Social Work News Magazine
Contact:
This Children’s Placement Commissioning Manager job is advertised by Billy Holland; if you are interested in this position please click above to apply now.
Due to the high volume of applications we receive, regretfully we are only able to respond to candidates who meet our clients' requirements.
As a pioneer of diverse recruitment, Sanctuary Personnel is proud to encourage applicants from diverse backgrounds as our pool of candidates is very much reflective of the clients that candidates will support within their role. This very much played a significant in previously winning ‘Best Candidate Care’ at the Recruiter Awards as well being a two-time finalist for the same award.
Sanctuary takes great pride in building candidate and client relationships that promote Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI).
With recruitment consultants and all other employees undertaking annual online training on EDI and many other compliance training courses, Sanctuary is best-placed to undertake a fair and thorough selection process.
Reasonable Adjustments:
If you consider yourself to have a disability or require any reasonable adjustment during the recruitment process or within the workplace, please highlight this at the earliest opportunity. With this information, we will provide appropriate support to you throughout the process and into your work placement.
