Strategic Commissioning Programme Manager - SEN in Chester

Cheshire West and Chester Council is a place where everyone can Thrive - through our core values of Teamwork, Honesty, Respect, Innovation, Value for Money and Empowerment. Cheshire West and Chester Council is setting the pace and creating a blueprint for a whole new kind of local authority. We have quickly established a reputation for doing things differently and breaking the mould.

The Strategic Commissioning and Market Management team is responsible for commissioning a wide and varied range of high quality, best value services within the People's Directorate across the Cheshire West Place that meet the needs of some of our most vulnerable residents. Our approach to commissioning - Enabling Great Lives! Our vision is for people to live great lives. People will live healthy, happy and independent lives, in the place they call home and with the people they love because we will commission services which are based on what people want to enable them to live a full and independent life.

For children and young people this means ensuring they are enabled to have the best start in life with access to services which support a safe and healthy childhood and work seamlessly when moving to adulthood. For everyone, regardless of their age or ability, our vision means they will be able to live their lives well in their community with a range of universal and specialist services which support a healthy, independent and fulfilling life. For older people this means they will age well at home in their community with their family and friends. When more support is needed, it will start with a conversation about what makes a great life for them and there will be just enough of the right kind of support to enable them to keep living the life they want.

The team has a challenging programme of recommissioning planned for the next 5 years. The Strategic Commissioning Programme Manager - SEN is a new role and will provide the successful postholder with an exciting opportunity to develop, plan and deliver a sufficiency plan for our children and young people with SEND; oversee the strategic commissioning of services, including education places, quality assurance and contract management processes for SEN places to ensure a child centred process and value for money is achieved for the council.

We are looking for an experienced, capable, dynamic and solution focused Commissioning Manager to lead and manage the delivery of high-quality commissioning outcomes. The Commissioning Manager will work closely with the senior leadership team across the directorate, corporate colleagues, elected members, and key stakeholders, including people who use our services and their carers, to deliver agreed commissioning priorities.

Immediate priorities over the next 24 months include (non-exhaustive):

• Develop a sufficiency plan outlining the services required for the next 5 years to enable our children and young people with SEND to access appropriate services to meet their needs within their local community.
• Deliver recommendations from the sufficiency plan and monitor progress.
• Undertake the strategic commissioning of services to support the education of children with SEND.
• Develop and implement processes to review educational places provided by the independent sector.
• Develop a brokerage function to ensure the most appropriate placements are sourced for children and young people with SEND.
• Integrated commissioning opportunities with health partners and other key stakeholders.
• Adult Learning Disability and Autism.
• Ageing Well.
• Children and Young People's services.
• Public Health services.
• Early Intervention and Prevention.

Cheshire West and Chester Council have adopted a Local Living Wage for our employees which means that all employees will receive a minimum of £12.60 per hour for all contracted hours.