Assistant Director of Commissioning and Innovation

This job is brought to you by Jobs/Redefined, the UK's leading over-50s age inclusive jobs board.

About the role

We are seeking a dynamic individual to support the Council's priority of improving outcomes for children and the wider population in North Northamptonshire.

In this role, you will inspire others and lead the identification, driving, and securing of opportunities to improve and transform services through strategic commissioning of education and children's social care. You will also ensure compliant commissioning of Public Health Services across all age ranges.

As the lead for Children's commissioning and partnerships, you will be accountable to the Executive Director of Children's Services (DCS).

This role will be central to the effective delivery of high-quality services and will require an individual who can manage complex relationships, drive change, and ensure that commissioning decisions are made based on data and evidence.

What will you be doing?

In this strategic role, you will take on significant responsibility across the commissioning, performance, contract management, and quality assurance functions within the directorate.

Your key responsibilities will include:

• Leading and overseeing commissioning, performance, contract management, and quality assurance functions, ensuring continuous improvement across the directorate.
• Driving innovation in service delivery, business processes, and efficiency in partnership with the Executive Director of Children's Services and the Director of Public Health.
• Working with colleagues and partners within Northamptonshire Children's Trust, health providers, and commissioned public health and education providers to identify and implement the best service delivery models that ensure high-quality outcomes and a positive customer experience.
• Developing and implementing a commissioning framework and strategy that supports smooth interactions between the Council, service providers, and statutory bodies, ensuring compliance with contractual and statutory duties.
• Leading the Youth Offer Board and youth work approaches, ensuring that statutory duties are met and early help interventions support young people in reaching their potential.
• Championing the Voice of the Child, ensuring that the needs and views of children and young people are reflected in the Council's improvement activities and commissioning decisions.
• Leading the strategic commissioning, contract, and performance management of public health services, including contracts related to 0-19 services, Drugs and Alcohol, and Health Inequalities, ensuring compliance with statutory duties.
• Supporting the Executive Director of Children's Services in overseeing improvement plans and performance failures, working with providers to implement suitable rectification measures.
• Assisting the Assistant Director for Education in ensuring sufficient education provision and developing strategies to maximise the impact of high-quality education.
• Representing the Children's Services Directorate on the corporate Commissioning and Procurement Board, providing expert advice and insights on commissioning in Children's Social Care, SEND, education, and learning provision.
• Maintaining a professional working relationship between the Council, Children's Trust, and other providers, supporting transformational change in social care, education, and public health services.
• Ensuring the provision of regular, timely, and coordinated management information to support service planning and operations within the directorate.
• Deputising for the Executive Director of Children's Services when required.
• Undertaking any other duties commensurate with the role.

About you

You will bring:

• A degree-level qualification and a post-graduate management qualification.
• Membership of a relevant professional body and a commitment to continuous professional development.
• Strong background in commissioning, contract management, and procurement at a strategic level.
• Experience in multi-disciplinary service development and managing diverse teams through change.
• Proven track record in local government or social care, with senior-level experience in a political environment.
• Budget management experience in a public sector setting and a history of managing senior staff and building external partnerships.
• Leadership and strategic commissioning expertise, including needs assessments and outcomes-based frameworks.
• Strong influencing, negotiation, and collaboration skills with internal and external stakeholders.
• Positive, resilient, and flexible with the ability to handle competing demands

Our benefits

Here at North Northamptonshire Council, we're transforming for the better, using all our creativity and imagination to create the best life for our local people.

You'll find that we have a wide range of careers that may be more surprising than you think!

Why choose us?

We offer a vibrant working environment with:

• a competitive salary
• a pension scheme, where we pay a significant contribution on top of your contribution. It provides life cover and ill-health protection.
• lots of opportunities to develop your skills, knowledge and potential in a large unitary council
• generous leave entitlement (28 days, rising to 33 days) and bank holidays, plus the option to buy up to an extra 10 days
• hybrid and flexible working arrangements, where practicable for service needs to help you with a healthy work-life balance.

We provide a range of great benefits such as an Employee Assistance Programme, an Employee Benefits Scheme, wellbeing support, travel rates at HMRC rates, as well as supporting a range of active Employee Network Groups.

About us

Our Values and Behaviours

Our values define who we are and how we operate, by forming the foundation for how we interact with our customers, colleagues and provide our services. They are also at the forefront of our decision making and delivery and are:

Customer-focused
Respectful
Efficient
Supportive
Trustworthy

Our Key Commitments

Our key commitments help ensure that the priorities we make, now and in the future, maintain the necessary breadth of focus in those areas that we believe matter most.

We are proud to be a recognised Disability Confident Employer and is committed to providing an inclusive recruitment process and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role.

North Northamptonshire Council re-signed the Armed Forces Covenant in June 2024 which highlights the Council's pledge to support the Armed Forces community. The council obtained the silver status award for the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS) and we are now currently working towards achieving Gold status.

We aim to be a carbon neutral Council by 2030.

Further information can be found at Jobs and careers | North Northamptonshire Council (northnorthants.gov.uk)