Essex County Council
Quality Improvement Officer – West and South
How your CV stacks up
Upload your CV to see how well it fits this job role
?%
About The Role
Quality Improvement Officer - West and South
Permanent, Full Time
£30,585 - £35,982 per annum
Location: Chelmsford
Working Style: Community-based worker
Closing Date: 12th August 2026
Please note that visa sponsorship is not available for this role. Applicants must have a current, unrestricted right to work in the UK.
Do you have experience working with or supporting regulated care providers? If so, we want to hear from you!
Join our Quality Improvement Team and play a key role in supporting the delivery of good and outstanding care across Essex. This is your opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of people in our communities.
To read more about our business area, please visit: [Adult Social Care](Adult Social Care)
The Opportunity
ECC Adult Social Care, through effective practice, is moving towards a transformational shift from a focus on long-term care support, to a model with four key principles:- prevention; early intervention; enablement and safeguarding. This will enable people, their families and carers to be able to access information and tools to live healthily and independently. Providing an opportunity to respond pro-actively to growing service demand in a sustainable way, within the financial constraints of the Council.
The role is focused on the development and implementation of the council’s approach to quality improvement of the adult social care market across Essex. It ensures that the adult social care market adheres to regulatory and contractual requirements and provides a consultancy service to the care market to ensure contract management and quality improvement can be delivered.
Providing early identification and intervention to manage risk effectively is key to ensure working systems function effectively and regular auditing of suppliers to ensure a good standard of quality is being met and monitoring improvement work.
Accountabilities
- Responsible for providing consultancy services to the Social care market on how to improve the quality of their services to ensure able to improve customer outcomes and experiences
- Working collaboratively partners and stakeholders to ensure maximise potential opportunities for quality improvement through the development of innovative approaches to service delivery in order to deliver greater service user choice.
- Responsible for identifying and challenging care delivery which falls below standards set, providing to ensure support given to improve the quality of service provision
- Provide expert advice and support to providers during periods of Safeguarding activity to ensure able to provide reports on expected standards of delivery across Essex to inform and support ECC’s safeguarding responsibilities and duty of care
- Ensure providers are compliant with all external regulation and contractual requirements in order to achieve required standards and ensure where there are any issues these are addressed in a timely, effective manner.
- Utilise opportunities to identify best practice opportunities to learn lessons from others and build professional knowledge and expertise to ensure maximise the value of relevant networks and influence service improvements through acquired learning.
- Provide support and guidance to the Quality Improvement Assistants to ensure the successful delivery of day to day activities and develop skills within the quality function.
- Identify patterns and trends in care delivery and share intelligence with People Commissioning to ensure inform and shape and influence future thinking and commissioning intent.
- Specific individual and shared targets and objectives are defined annually within the performance management framework.
Reasons to use Rodeo
Start with a chat, not a search bar
Grad scheme, placement, apprenticeship? Not sure what you want yet — that's fine. Your agent talks it through with you and turns "I have no idea" into a shortlist.
It searches the market for you
Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.
Only hits
No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.
The Experience You Will Bring
- Educated to RQF Level 3 (A Levels) equivalent or equivalent experience and evidence of continuing professional development.
- Proven experience within a social care setting with evidence of ensuring quality of outputs in delivering service.
- Good communication skills and an ability to develop a rapport and engage with diverse groups of individuals.
- Evidence of a good understanding of quality standards, analysis, organisational development and demonstrable practical application of these.
- Ability to develop good business relationships and influence others in presenting compelling arguments for change or improvement
If you would like further information or an informal discussion about this role, please contact Cathrine Johnson on cathrine.johnson@essex.gov.uk.
Why Essex?
As one of the largest and most dynamic UK local authorities, Essex offers a stimulating public service environment. Covering over 1,420 square miles and serving 1.8 million residents, we’re committed to transformational change and delivering better quality at lower cost. Recognised in the top three of the latest IMPOWER index for productivity, we ensure everyone matters in Everyone's Essex. With flexible working options and a focus on innovation, whether you are looking to develop your career or contribute to the local community, Essex is the ideal place for you.
In March 2026, the Government announced that councils in Greater Essex will be reorganised into five new unitary authorities from April 2028. In addition to this, Greater Essex has been accepted on to the devolution priority programme, where we will work towards establishing a Mayoral Combined County Authority. You can read more about these changes, and what this may mean for this role, on our careers site.
Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
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.
Once you’ve secured your role within Essex County Council you will receive many great employee benefits, including support for unpaid carers and flexible working arrangements to accommodate their needs.
At Essex County Council, we value integrity and ethical behaviour. We kindly ask that you embrace our code of conduct and the Nolan principles, including throughout the recruitment process. Your commitment to these standards helps us maintain a positive and respectful workplace for everyone.
The role requires you to be mobile throughout a wider operational area including travelling around the county of Essex and beyond, transporting service users and their belongings and to be able to do so in an emergency. Driving licence and car or the ability to meet the mobility requirements of the role through other means is essential.
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.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Further details can be found on our careers page.
Downloads
“It took my CV and asked me questions relevant to understanding what kind of jobs to suggest for me. Suggestions were almost perfect. Jobs were exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
Jessica, London
Skills