Commissioning Officer

The core role is to manage placements for children in care. This could be foster families, residential homes or supported accommodation for older young people. Key tasks:

• Work as part of a contract/placement management team.
• Lead on specific area of placements/providers, eg residential care.
• Review placements for children in care, prioritising high cost placements.
• Respond to placement disruptions, notices, request for additional support and concerns about providers.
• Complete record keeping and paperwork for each child.
• Be part of a duty rota to manage emergency placement searches for same day home finding.
• Managing finance queries.
It is a busy and face paced role, working to tight deadlines. You will be part of a team of staff managing placements with admin support, quality assurance and a brokerage team for children. The team work closely together with daily MS teams calls and a lively MS teams chat stream. Everyone works together and we are all passionate about finding and maintaining the right home for every child or young person. We have monthly team meetings and work in the office 1 to 2 days a week. You can work in the office daily if this suits. We are based at Shire hall in Gloucester. This can be negotiated for the right applicant. Core hours at 9am to 5pm and this is required to manage the demands of the service provision.

We want to be an employer of choice, attracting and retaining excellent people to work for us, so that we can best serve all of Gloucestershire's diverse communities. Our promise to you is that we will provide an inclusive and supportive working environment that enables you to bring your whole self to work and realise your full potential. It is a legal requirement, under the Immigration Act 2016, that anyone appointed to a 'customer facing role' must be able to demonstrate an ability to fulfil all spoken aspects of the role with confidence in fluent English. Hybrid working arrangements are available for the majority of our roles, giving teams the opportunity to work in a way that suits them, balancing service need and individual choice, with a mix of both remote and office working.

In return we will offer you:
• Regular formal and informal support.
• Safe, supportive and positive working environment with regular, robust supervision.
• Access to relevant training and career progression.
• Annual leave of 25.5 days (pro rata) up to 30.5 days (pro rata) after 5 years employment.
• Access to the Local Government Pension Scheme.
• Staff discount scheme that offers access to great savings including discounts with major supermarket chains and high street retailers.
• Access to our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) that provides free, confidential, counselling and advice for employees, available 24 hours a day, online and by telephone.
• Cycle to Work scheme.
• Links to employee networks such as Prism (LGBT+) network and the Young Employees Network.
• Gloucestershire Salary Sacrifice Green Car Scheme (T&C's apply).