QA Contract Officer

Job description

Contract Terms

Grade: PO1
Salary: £37,443 – £39,264 per annum
Contract Type: Full Time, Permanent (36 Hours per week)
Closing Date: Sunday 13th October 2024
Interview Date: Week commencing 21st October 2024

About Haringey

Haringey is a fantastic place to live and work – the world in one borough. A place brimming with creativity, personality, radicalism, and community. It is a place where we stand up for each other. A place that is proudly distinctive. We’ll be celebrating all this and more as the “rebel borough” when we are the 2027 London Borough of Culture.
Our history champions change-makers and everyday rebels; revelling in our differences, battling discrimination, championing equality, and doing things our own way. Haringey’s people are a huge asset, with knowledge, expertise, and passion. Our staff members embody our organisational values: Caring, Creative, Courageous, Collaborative and Community-focused. These values keep us looking forward, ambitious for the future, and continuously striving to do our very best for all of our residents.

About the Team

As a QA Contracts Officer, you will be reporting to the Strategic Commissioner of the Commissioning and Programmes team, within Children’s Services. This is a new team within the directorate, and it has been established to ensure that our commissioning and programme activity encompasses:

• Strategic thinking: The service values those who are able to think strategically and provide management with innovative ideas and input for the ongoing improvement of the service.
• Collaborative working: The service operates with a “One Children’s Commissioning” approach, working together with external partners to achieve our objectives.
• Performance management: We place a strong emphasis on performance management, ensuring the delivery of high-quality commissioned contracts and services that are evidence-based and offer best value.
• Cultural change: We are driving cultural change and new ways of working to ensure that the service aligns with corporate and service priorities, plans and objectives.

About the Role

The successful candidate will be responsible for quality assuring the provision of service providers.
Key Responsibilities includes: 

• The position requires providing commissioned service providers with Quality Assurance oversight, visiting locations to check on standards and working with providers to improve their services using best practises. It is also necessary to communicate with the pertinent inspection and registration agencies and write reports about these visits.
• Perform due diligence checks on the records, systems, instruction, and procedures of the Provider to get the pertinent data required to conduct financial and risk assessments. The required records must be properly maintained.
• Actively keep an eye on contracts to make sure that Service Level Agreements clearly outline the requirements, results, performance indicators, and budget.
• Challenge service providers when their performance on contracts and IPAs falls short of expectations. In cases when non-compliance results in unacceptable standards, appropriate measures must be taken.
• To build and maintain a database of independent sector service providers, create reports for senior managers or lead council officers regarding providers when there are issues or a decline in performance or standards.
• To serve as a consultant and expert on commissioning standards, as well as a liaison between top management, providers, and other commissioners.

About You

The ideal candidate will have:

• Understanding of quality performance in the context of public sector commissioning
• Strong analytical abilities.
• The ability to persuade, negotiate, and settle issues as well as the capacity to build networks, develop alliances, and lead a variety of different groups.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Strong interpersonal and communication abilities.

Working for Haringey

At Haringey Council we are committed to creating a workplace culture where all our people feel valued, included, and able to be their best at work, and we recognise the benefits of a diverse workforce so welcome applications from all ethnicities and communities so that we continue to make a difference to our residents and community.  Our benefits package includes a leave entitlement of 31 days + bank holidays, potential hybrid working opportunities, health and wellbeing support, a generous local government pension scheme and a range of discount schemes across leisure and culture that provide both financial and money-saving discounts.
Please note: we reserve the right to end this advert before the noted deadline if we receive sufficient applications. If you wish to apply for this role, please ensure that you do so as soon as possible.
Additionally, we are aware that automated emails may be diverted through to junk email folders.  Please continue to check these through the application process.  If you have any questions about the status of your application, please contact ResourcingHub@haringey.gov.uk