Practice Auditor - fixed-term for two years in Newtown

Our Quality Assurance and Practice Standards Team plays a key role in supporting and improving adult social care practice across Cambridgeshire. Working closely with senior leaders, managers and frontline teams, we help to identify and celebrate good practice, explore opportunities for learning and development, and ensure that the people we support receive high-quality services that make a real difference to their lives.

The team provides evidence-based assurance through audits, case reviews and engagement with services, helping the organisation understand what is working well and where improvements can be made. We also support a wide range of practice improvement activities, including developing guidance and resources, facilitating learning opportunities, and working collaboratively with teams and partners to promote excellent social care practice.

As a Practice Auditor, you will be at the heart of improving practice across Adult Social Care. Through undertaking audits, analysing practice, identifying trends and supporting service improvements, you will help ensure that we meet our statutory responsibilities, maintain high professional standards and deliver services that reflect the needs, wishes and outcomes of the people we support.

This is an exciting opportunity to join a supportive and growing team with a strong focus on learning, development and practice excellence. The role offers the opportunity to influence service improvement across the organisation at a time of continued development and innovation in Adult Social Care.

Interviews will be held at New Shire Hall in Alconbury Weald on Thursday 27th August.

• Undertaking audits across Adult Social Care services and reviewing practice against legislation, policy, standards and best practice.
• Analysing information from case records, performance data and other sources to identify strengths, risks, themes and opportunities for improvement.
• Preparing clear and concise audit reports and presenting your findings to managers, colleagues and senior leaders.
• Working with teams to develop recommendations and support improvements in practice, policy and service delivery.
• Helping to monitor the impact of improvements and demonstrate how outcomes have changed as a result.
• Gathering feedback from people with lived experience to better understand the quality, impact and effectiveness of social care practice.
• Building positive working relationships with colleagues across Adult Social Care to encourage engagement with quality assurance and improvement activity.
• Providing professional challenge where required and escalating any urgent practice concerns appropriately.
• Contributing to wider quality assurance and practice improvement initiatives, including workshops, guidance, learning events and multi-agency auditing activity.
• Supporting the development of a culture of reflection, learning and continuous improvement across services.

You will report to the Practice Audit Lead Officer and work closely with Senior Quality Assurance and Practice Standards Officers, the Quality Assurance and Practice Standards Manager, operational managers and practitioners across Adult Social Care.

We are looking for an enthusiastic, analytical and passionate individual who is committed to improving outcomes for adults and promoting high standards of social care practice.

You will bring:

• A good understanding of Adult Social Care legislation, statutory responsibilities and best practice.
• Experience of working within Adult Social Care, Health, Safeguarding, Quality Assurance or a related environment.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to write reports and present information to different audiences.
• Strong analytical skills and the ability to interpret information, identify trends and make evidence-based recommendations.
• Experience of building positive and productive working relationships with colleagues and stakeholders.
• Confidence using Microsoft Office applications and electronic case recording systems.
• A commitment to continuous professional development and improving practice standards.
• An understanding of equality, diversity and inclusion and how these values inform practice.

We recognise that excellent candidates may not have direct quality assurance or auditing experience. If you have worked in social care, health, safeguarding, service improvement, compliance, regulation, performance analysis, quality management or a similar environment, and can demonstrate strong analytical, communication and relationship-building skills, we would encourage you to apply.

Most importantly, you will be someone who is curious, objective, motivated to improve practice, and passionate about ensuring the best possible outcomes for the people we support.

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.

If you don’t meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don’t be put off. 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, whose details can be found in the advert, 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.

Visit our jobs and careers section to find out more about our wide range of learning and development opportunities; apprenticeships; our wellbeing package; staff benefits; our commitment to equality, diversity and Inclusion.

• 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? As part of our friendly and experienced team, you will plan and undertake practice-related audit activity across Adult Social Care services, helping us understand how effectively we are meeting our statutory responsibilities and achieving positive outcomes for the people we support.