Commissioning Manager

We have an exciting three-year fixed-term contract opportunity for an experienced Commissioning Manager to play a leading role in delivering North Northamptonshire's Family Hubs Transformation Programme. This role will be central to shaping and embedding the Family Hubs model, ensuring services are joined-up, accessible, and responsive to the needs of children, young people, and families.

Responsibilities

• Commission high-quality, evidence-based, and cost-effective services across key strands of the transformation, including parenting support, the home learning environment, infant feeding, and perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationships.
• Bring advanced knowledge of commissioning, co-production, and monitoring and evaluation, alongside strong skills in community engagement, partnership working, and stakeholder management.
• Oversee provider performance, manage micro-tenders and grants, and ensure services deliver real impact for local communities.
• Lead the development of comprehensive and integrated commissioning strategies to achieve the best possible outcomes for the population and vulnerable groups within available resources, compliant with legislation and in line with national and local strategic direction, and fully informed by involvement and co-production with customers and service users.
• Manage a diverse network of providers, oversee a high volume of micro-tenders and small grant arrangements, and secure value for money and measurable outcomes.
• Develop and maintain high-quality partnerships with stakeholders including the voluntary sector, health, housing, and independent sector organisations to meet population needs.
• Procure new and revised support and services, including working with public health colleagues to develop service specifications, documentation for re-tender, and maintaining a lead role in procurement processes.
• Collaborate with practitioners, clinicians, service users, procurement, legal advisors, and commissioning team colleagues to ensure contracts accurately reflect service requirements.
• Drive best value for money, develop and monitor cost-effective services, develop transparent provider pricing, agree outcome-focused contracts, renegotiate existing arrangements, recommission poor value services, and prepare business cases for new investments.
• Ensure services and contracts remain compliant with local and national standards, procurement legislation, and service area expectations.
• Intervene when contracted services fall below required performance measures by working with lead officers to support services in meeting standards, renegotiate terms, decommission contracts, or re-tender as required.

Values

• Customer-focused
• Respectful
• Efficient
• Supportive
• Trustworthy

Qualifications

• Evidence of education to degree level or equivalent.
• A professional qualification relating to commissioning, public health, health or social care or evidence of wide-ranging knowledge about the legislation, national strategy and needs of public health provided services gained through substantial practitioner experience, and a thorough understanding of commissioning and procurement.
• Demonstration of direct responsibilities for budgets, service delivery and people management.
• Recent, proven experience of effective inter-agency working.
• Experience of effective project management.
• Understanding of departmental usage of information systems and aptitude to utilise information technology.
• Numerate and literate – able to develop costed business cases and to draft papers for different audiences.

Desirable Criteria

• Experience of sexual health and/or 0-19 commissioning; an ability to commission new and innovative services in accordance with new government policies and requirements.
• Able to effectively manage significant budgets within financial constraints and regulations.
• Good organisational and problem-solving skills.
• Articulate and able to communicate well both orally and in writing.
• Report writing and verbal reasoning ability sufficient to write and present reports including Cabinet and Scrutiny Committee reports and to draft service specifications.
• Able to demonstrate reliability and ability to deliver to deadlines.
• Ability to work on own initiative, seeking advice when appropriate.
• Demonstrate ability to travel effectively to different locations.
• Experience of finance and financial systems.

Equal Opportunities

• Ability to demonstrate awareness/understanding of equal opportunities and other people's behaviour, physical, social and welfare needs.

Additional Factors

• Able to demonstrate a clear understanding and commitment to health and safety and a willingness to undertake training to enable implementation of procedures.

Benefits

• 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.
• 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.