Strategic Lead for Contract and Brokerage management

at  Cambridgeshire County Council

About the role
Are you an ambitious and inspirational individual with the capability to make a difference to people’s lives?
Then we want to hear from you!
Cambridgeshire County Council is looking for a Strategic Lead to support our Contracts Team. The Strategic Lead will oversee and lead the contract and brokerage management function of a range of services within Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism, driving value for money and ensuring commissioned services achieve their expected outcomes
This is a unique opportunity to provide leadership to an established high performing team with an outstanding reputation for leading the way in our Adult’s Commissioning Directorate.
This will include working strategically and operationally with internal and external stakeholders across the district Councils, health and social care system, local communities, and service user groups.
The new postholder will have a key role representing the Head of Service for Adult Social Care Commercial, Contracts and Brokerage at relevant Partnership Boards and Committee meetings relevant to the portfolio.
Can you rise to the challenge? If you have the passion for putting social care at the heart of everything you do and the ambition to help shape our future, we would love to hear from you.

Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of a Standard 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.
What will you be doing?

The successful candidate will:

• Take strategic responsibility for contract and brokerage management activity and for the delivery and transformation activities that will drive high-quality care and support services.
• Lead and develop a large, multidisciplinary contract and brokerage management team and wider project team with a focus on engagement, market testing/development and providing strong evidence bases on customer experience and success of commissioning outcomes.
• Ensure resources are allocated in a way which meets need and legislative requirements and adheres to the corporate procurement policies and contract regulations of the council.
• Ensure robust change control/risk management procedures are in place and that clear benefits mapping and oversight of impact and outcomes is developed and maintained within the wider project team.
• Focus on stakeholder involvement and participation and ensure that brokerage outcomes are delivered and clearly communicated. This will include reporting to Senior Officer boards and relevant committees. The role will have a significant responsibility to ensure all external partners, statutory organisations, VCS, and Independent Sector are actively engaged in commissioning activity.
• Identify and maximise efficiencies across service boundaries.
• Manage, monitor, and support budget setting, inflationary strategies and long-term financial planning for budgets within the adult social care portfolio, as well as securing the appropriate incomes from joint funding organisations.
• Be accountable for the preparation, contribution to and associated action plans following regulatory inspections and to drive the changes of the Adult Social Care Reform where this aligns to the delivery of commissioned provision.
• Continuously review current strategies and sufficiency forecasts, developing these for placed based community provision, and identifying and exploiting opportunities for how forecasts are used to both inform contract and brokerage arrangements.

About you

• Be educated to Degree or Equivalent qualification in a relevant field.
• Have substantial experience of commissioning/contracts within a local authority/Health system.
• Understand the key government drivers and the change agenda directly affecting strategic development and provision of adult social care services.
• Have an understanding and experience of applying current legislation, policy and guidance through commissioning and contracts
• Understand best practice and innovative approaches in applying the principles and practice of commissioning, procurement, contract management and safeguarding
• Have an understanding of supply chains and the factors affecting services provided to the service area, and how commercial techniques can be applied to maximise value for money.
• Have extensive experience of managing teams within the public sector and motivating them to deliver.
• Have experience of performance management, skills audits and action plans.
• Experience of managing and influencing change and management information to analyse and improve service performance.
• Have a proven track record in achieving savings, cost avoidances and best value for a Council.Have experience of leading or being involved in budget planning and forecasting.
• Experience of establishing effective working links with internal and external agencies including market engagement and management of partnership boards and provider forums.

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
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