About the role
Make a lasting difference across social care,, , education, public health and housing. At West Northamptonshire Council, we want West Northants to be a great place to live, work, visit and thrive. We are looking for an inspirational, collaborative leader who shares our ambition to improve lives through strong partnerships, excellent services and outcome-focused commissioning.
Joining us as Corporate Director of Integrated Commissioning, you will be a key member of our Senior Management Team, providing strategic leadership across a significant and diverse portfolio.
You will bring partners together to shape our integrated commissioning approach across Public Health, Children's Services, Education, Adult Social Care and Housing. Working alongside health and care partners, you will help ensure services reflect evidence, local need and residents' voices, while delivering quality, sustainability and value for money.
This is a rewarding opportunity to shape services across the whole life course and make a real difference to how we address shared challenges, including SEND, health inequalities, an ageing population and integrated neighbourhood teams. Through co-production and partnership working, you will help residents of all ages live their best lives.
Reporting to the Executive Director for Adults & Wellbeing, you will lead a service of around 80 colleagues, with five direct reports, and manage a budget of approximately £30 million.
PLEASE NOTE: Successful applicants will need to be available for online technical interviews on 9th and 10th November, and panel interviews in Northampton on 30th November.
What will you be doing?
You will lead across Adult Social Care, Public Health, Children's and Education and Housing Commissioning, alongside Finance Operations. You will create an inclusive, high-performing culture where colleagues can grow, innovate and deliver lasting improvements for residents.
You will bring together the Integrated Care Board, health partners, providers, residents and communities to strengthen jointly commissioned services and shape new approaches to shared contracts and delivery. You will champion evidence-led, personalised commissioning, ensuring residents' voices and co-production remain at the heart of service design.
You will help ensure commissioned services are lawful, safe, sustainable and high quality, while delivering excellent value for money. With oversight of commissioning plans, contracts, performance, governance and risk across a complex provider market, you will keep safeguarding at the heart of everything we do.
As a senior leader, you will have the opportunity to build trusted relationships, champion transformation and innovation, and provide clear professional advice to elected members. You will make an important contribution through Cabinet, scrutiny committees and the Health and Wellbeing Board, while managing resources responsibly and helping deliver the council's financial plans.
About you
You will be an accomplished and credible senior leader, with experience of leading large, complex service portfolios in a challenging financial environment. You will bring a strong track record of delivering change, managing substantial budgets and leading large teams to achieve sustainable improvements.
A natural collaborator and skilled influencer, you will enjoy working across organisational boundaries and building trusted relationships with elected members, senior leaders, health partners, providers, communities and residents. You will navigate complexity, challenge constructively and bring people together around a shared purpose.
You will bring extensive knowledge of the statutory and legislative frameworks across adult social care, children's services and public health, together with a strong understanding of commissioning, procurement, contracting, safeguarding, quality assurance and provider-market sustainability.
You will combine strong financial management, communication, negotiation and problem-solving skills with the ability to lead transformation, manage risk and inspire high-performing teams. You will be educated to degree level in a relevant subject, or have equivalent experience, and hold a relevant Level 7 professional qualification, an equivalent qualification or significant experience in a comparable senior role. You will also be willing and able to participate in an out-of-hours rota.
Above all, you will share our commitment to equality, inclusive leadership and continuous professional development.
Our benefits
You can also see our full list of employee benefits on our careers site here: Why you should work for us | West Northamptonshire Council.
About us
At West Northants Council, it’s about our people. People who thrive with ambition, bubble with new ideas, demand better ways of working, caring about every detail, and who never shy away from a challenge. Our culture is a gateway for new experiences. A place to forge new opportunities. To empower you in your career and unite you with like-minded people.
Our vision is ‘to make West Northants a great place to live, work, visit and thrive’. We truly stand by this and work hard every day to make this a reality. Our corporate values, THRIVE, stand for: Trust, High Performance, Respect, Innovate and Empower, they underpin everything we do and how we deliver services. Hear from our Chief Executive, Martin Henry, about building a career at WNC.
We are committed to ensuring diversity, equality, equity, and inclusion is woven into the fabric of WNC and everything we do, to enable all colleagues to develop and maximize their full potential. We are a disability confident employer, a member of the Armed Forces Covenant, and a Care Leaver Covenant partner
The following film was created by us to communicate our intentions - watch WNC colleagues explain what DEI means to us.
If you need additional support or reasonable adjustments during the application process, including needing the job description in another format or language, please email careers@westnorthants.gov.uk for support.
Please note we reserve the right to close the advert early if we receive a high volume of suitable applications, so we recommend applying as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.
West Northants Council, where careers thrive.
Attached documents
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