The Service & Team
This is an exciting opportunity to play a key role in commissioning high-quality services for children in care and care leavers, supporting the delivery of Cornwall’s Better Homes sufficiency strategy.
Working within the Together for Families directorate, you will contribute to shaping and delivering high-quality, sustainable services that enable children and young people to live in safe, stable and nurturing homes, as close to their communities as possible.
The successful candidate will work closely with social care colleagues, including social workers and the Council’s Home Hub, building strong and effective relationships to ensure commissioning activity is fully aligned with operational practice and placement decision-making.
The Role
As Commissioning Manager, you will lead on the design, procurement and management of services for children in care and care leavers. You will play a central role in implementing Cornwall Council’s Better Homes sufficiency strategy, ensuring that local provision meets the needs of children and young people.
You will drive innovation in contracting and market development, supporting the creation of a diverse and sustainable provider market. This includes securing local sufficiency, ensuring best value, and improving outcomes through evidence‑led and outcome‑focused commissioning.
The role spans the full commissioning cycle—analysis, planning, delivery and review—using data, insight and feedback to develop market intelligence that shapes service design. You will develop specifications, contracts and performance frameworks that set clear expectations for quality, safeguarding and impact, while supporting continuous improvement across services.
A key aspect of the role is building strong collaborative relationships with operational colleagues to ensure a shared understanding of need and a coordinated approach to placements and support. Through this, you will help reduce reliance on out‑of‑area placements and strengthen local provision.
You will also work in partnership with colleagues across health, education and the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector to develop integrated pathways of support. The role requires proactive market engagement, co‑production with children and young people, and close working with providers to foster innovation and resilience in the market.
You will manage a portfolio of contracts, ensuring compliance with governance and procurement frameworks while maintaining a strong focus on quality assurance, performance and outcomes. This includes monitoring service delivery, benchmarking performance and driving continuous improvement to ensure services deliver meaningful impact and value for money.
As a visible and influential leader, you will represent the Council at local and regional forums, contribute to system‑wide improvement and respond to emerging pressures and policy developments. Through your work, you will help ensure children in care and care leavers in Cornwall are supported to thrive, achieve stability and independence, and experience the best possible outcomes.
This is a public/customer‑facing role, where the statutory English language requirement for public sector workers applies.
This position will be subject to a criminal record disclosure check.
Working Pattern
Full‑time position with flexible and hybrid working arrangements available, supporting a healthy work‑life balance while meeting service needs.
What you’ll need to succeed
* Strong experience in commissioning, procurement or contract management within children’s services or a related field
* A thorough understanding of the needs of children in care and care leavers
* Experience of leading across the commissioning cycle, including service design, procurement and performance management
* Strong analytical skills, with the ability to use data and insight to inform decision‑making and service improvement
* Excellent relationship‑building and partnership‑working skills, with the ability to influence across operational and strategic settings
* Knowledge of safeguarding, quality assurance and regulatory requirements within children’s services
* A proactive, innovative and solution‑focused approach to challenges
What you’ll get in return
Cornwall Council’s ambition is to be an employer of choice, a high performing Council and a learning organisation. We commit to providing a reward and benefits package to attract, motivate and reward our employees. We offer a range of flexible working options to our staff. This helps provide our employees with a greater work/life balance while still ensuring that service needs are met.
* a competitive salary
* a defined benefit pension scheme, based on your career average earnings. This includes the option for extra voluntary contributions
* a generous annual leave entitlement with the potential to purchase additional leave
* a national award‑winning employee health and well‑being programme
* Employee benefits scheme giving employees access to a wide range of discounts to local and national goods and services
Additional Information
Cornwall Council is unable to offer visa sponsorship or transfer existing sponsorship for this role.
The full role profile is attached here.
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