Practice Lead Audit Officer in Huntingdon

We have a rare and exciting opportunity available for the right person to join us as Practice Audit Lead within the Quality Assurance and Practice Standards Team, which works across Adult Social Care within Cambridgeshire County Council. The team's work is evidence based using information obtained through audits, case reviews and working with front line social care teams.

Aspects of the team's activities include:

• Delivering audit programmes
• Running social care practice workshops across the council
• Developing practice guidance and newsletters
• Working with other areas of the council to provide a joined-up approach to social care
• Facilitating huddles and developing best social care practice in the council’s Adults Social Care Service

The focus of this role is leading our Practice Auditors working with the Quality Assurance and Practice Standards Manager to oversee our audit programmes, support the ongoing development of audit tools and the implementation of gathering feedback from adults with care and support needs and unpaid carers. The team is small but effective with a strong emphasis on social care values and good social care practice standards.

Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service. The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Our benefits:

• A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing, both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family
• Buy up to 4 weeks additional annual leave (pro-rata) through our salary sacrifice scheme
• Take your bank holidays flexibly to better suit your personal circumstances
• Make Additional Voluntary Contributions (Shared AVCs) to your pension with tax and National Insurance savings
• Access to development opportunities, apprenticeships and qualified coaches to support your personal and professional growth
• Paid volunteering hours each year so you can make a positive impact on our community during your normal working day
• Access to Peer Support Groups through our IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network
• Opportunities to nominate and receive Employee Recognition Awards
• An Our Cambs Rewards account, giving you access to in-store and online discounts as well as our Car Lease and Cycle to Work schemes

What will you be doing?

Your day-to-day duties will include providing line management to the Practice Auditors, supporting the development of our audit programmes by collaborative working with colleagues across the operational service, and participation in team activities such as the ongoing development of our audit tools and processes, the design and delivery of reflective sessions to colleagues in adult social care and the production of practice guidance to support colleagues. You will be required to support the auditor team with the completion of case audits through providing professional practice guidance and leadership, prepare case summaries and seek out evidence of our work with individuals in Cambridgeshire; this includes direct contact with adults with care and support needs, unpaid carers and working with our partnership boards to ensure a collaborative approach to developing our work. You will identify any areas of challenge and support the development of action plans in response to the challenges.

In order to complete this work, you will be working closely and collaboratively with the Quality Assurance and Practice Standards Manager, the Head of Quality Assurance and Practice Standards and other key stakeholders. You will have the opportunity to be involved at every level of adult social care operational teams, and work with shared teams including our learning and development team, customer care team and business intelligence team. Your line manager will be the Quality Assurance and Practice Standards Manager, but as a small and close team, you will receive daily support from all within the team, including regular opportunities to participate in team reflective sessions and support the wider work of the Quality Assurance and Practice Standards Team.

About you:

We need someone who is either an experienced Social Worker registered with Social Work England or alternatively qualified in a relevant profession. You must have experience of social care with adults and be skilled with working with others. We are looking for an individual who is passionate about developing social care practice in Cambridgeshire. The right person for this role will be someone who has an understanding of what good practice looks like and ideally, experience of quality assurance in a social care setting. We are a team which works across service areas, and we work hard to form and maintain positive working relationships with our colleagues. A track record of positive partnership working is essential as well as excellent communication skills, both verbal and written. It is important that you are able to demonstrate excellent planning, prioritisation, time management and leadership skills. As the role involves quality assurance of practice through the use of case audits and tracking you must have an eye for detail and the ability to apply professional analysis and scrutiny to information. It is essential that you are skilled in using Microsoft Office 365 (Outlook, Excel, Word, Teams, One Drive) and social care case recording systems.

About us:

Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes. Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do. We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities. We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self-organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered. We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action. We are proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager to discuss any adjustment needs. Through a Guaranteed Interview Scheme, we will offer an interview to all applicants who disclose a disability and meet the essential criteria for a job vacancy. On your application form you can indicate you are disabled. Some examples of reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process could include additional time to complete an assessment or printing a document on pastel coloured paper with larger font size and line spacing. We would value talking about what might be possible to enable you to join us and thrive, so if there is something that would help you to do your best during your journey with us, please get in touch.