Job Title: Commissioning Officer – Children’s Services Contract Length: 4-month initial interim contract Location: South West, UK (ideally 3 days on site) Pay rate: £41 per hour (Umbrella) Working pattern: 5 days per week A great new opportunity has arisen for a Local Authority in the South West of England to work as the Commissioning Officer for Children’s Services for an initial 4 months. Reporting to the Head of Commissioning, you will contribute to the development, implementation, and monitoring of commissioning plans to deliver the Council's strategic and operational direction for children and young people, with a special focus on Provider Compliance, Quality Assurance and expertise in report writing. CV submission is by 12pm Friday 29th August, with a view to interview and start as soon as possible. Your duties as the Commissioning Officer: Undertake procurement processes and monitor the resulting contracts or service level agreements to ensure compliance with the specifications and statutory responsibilities. Advice on specifications to be included in contracts and SLAs to maintain standards in accordance with legislation and agreed local protocols. Instigate the appropriate follow up action in cases where performance falls below the specified standard to achieve best value for money and dispute resolution. Propose and help implement service improvements within an integrated service plan to improve the outcomes for service users, and the council, ensuring compliance with legislation and local conventions. Provide support and advice to identified stakeholders as detailed within the service work programme and address identified needs to comply with quality assurance professional standards. Responding to provider/market failure and ensuring that services are kept safe and all risks identified and minimized where appropriate action is required. Work with and to provide support to commissioning managers who have responsibility for producing and reviewing strategies related to children’s services. Your experience required as the Commissioning Officer: Knowledge of key national issues & programmes relevant to client group and specified outcome/service area. Experience of commissioning projects including undertaking needs assessment for commissioning purposes, provider compliance, quality assurance, performance management and monitoring and review reporting, with a focus on children’s services. Experience of service development, options appraisal and system change using demonstrable programme management skills including financial management. Experience of using management information, needs assessment for commissioning, performance management and monitoring and review reporting. Current Enhanced DBS or willing to undertake one. Able to provide at least 2 years’ worth of references. Alternatively, if this role doesn’t match your skill set and you’re proactively looking for a new assignment, please either send an updated version of your CV or contact me on (phone number removed) today and I’d be delighted to put you in contact with the most relevant, specialist consultant. (We offer a senior referral scheme upon successful placement of your recommendation so please do get in contact) Baltimore Consulting Group is an Executive & Senior Appointments Specialist. We provide pivotal recruitment consultancy services to public sector clients across the whole UK marketplace. I personally recruit within the Health and Social Care Market so if this role is not of interest but you would like to discuss other market opportunities, please get in touch