Commissioning Officer | 11396 | Permanent Contract | 37 hours per week | £33,119 to £34,811 per annum | Grade G | Countywide

Children and young people in Norfolk with specialist or complex needs may need additional support to help them achieve positive outcomes and thrive. Some of this support is delivered directly by Norfolk County Council, while other services are commissioned from external organisations.

The Integrated Commissioning Team plays an important role in making sure these services are effective, responsive to the needs of children, young people and families, provide good value for public money and continue to improve.

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the Integrated Commissioning Team in Children’s Services as a Commissioning Officer supporting our Specialist & Complex commissioning portfolio.

This is a varied and practical role where no two contracts are quite the same. You will work alongside a Commissioning and Service Development Manager and colleagues across Children’s Services, supporting the day-to-day management, monitoring and development of a diverse portfolio of commissioned services.

This commissioning portfolio supports children and young people across a range of circumstances and needs, therefore giving you experience of several different areas of Children’s Services commissioning. Some of the services you will help support include: Positive Behaviour Support, Fostering Advice and Mediation, Independent Visitors… and more!

Your role will be to assist the team in monitoring and evaluating commissioned services for quality and effectiveness. Day to day you’ll support a variety of projects, manage discreet pieces of work, maintain project plans, and collect and analyse data for commissioning and partnership work. You’ll also engage in regular stakeholder events and liaise with providers.

You’ll have an eye for detail and do your research, and you’ll be good at developing and managing relationships (which is what commissioning is about). You’ll have demonstrable skills and experience in monitoring and evaluation, but you don’t need to have local authority experience - we welcome candidates from a range of backgrounds and will be looking for cross transferable skills. You’ll be highly motivated and committed, with an ability to work on your own initiative. It will be beneficial if you have experience of working in organisations supporting children, young people and / or families, and in the education sector in particular.

Your main duties will include:

• Regularly monitoring the effectiveness and quality of commissioned services through direct observation of practice, collecting and analysing data to produce regular performance reports for all stakeholders.
• Working with providers to ensure quality standards are maintained whilst gathering accurate market intelligence.
• Contributing to the development of a commissioning performance management framework and practice.
• Monitoring trends in comments, compliments and complaints received from all sources concerning commissioned services undertaking investigations, resolving issues or escalating persistent problems as required.
• Providing information, guidance or advice for commissioned service providers in relation to enquiries regarding interpretation of service specifications, data requirements, invoice queries or need to vary service delivery outcomes.
• Ensuring that providers are using Children and Young People’s feedback to continuously improve their services and facilitating engagement with Children and Young People to ensure their voices are heard in the design and delivery of services.