Early Years and Childcare Manager Sufficiency

Full Time / 37 Hours Per Week / Permanent

Would you like to play a strategic lead role in fulfilling the Council's statutory duties to ensure sufficient high-quality early education and childcare services to all children in Leicester who are eligible?

This is an exciting opportunity to join the Early Education Development team, working alongside the Head of Early Years and Childcare, responding to policy and programmes from the Department for Education, relating to development of the early years and childcare sector. You will be strategic lead responsible for sufficiency, sustainability and business support for the early years and childcare sector in Leicester.

You will manage a small team of Early Education Development Officers and be responsible for ensuring the local authority undertake and publish an annual childcare sufficiency assessment and lead the work around interim market position statements, reporting this key information to senior leaders across the council. The work involves engaging with childcare providers and key stakeholders across the sector, to shape the market in response to need for provision in Leicester.

There is a blend of working out in the community as well as a hybrid model of being home and office based. Hours can be worked flexibly but will require you to be responsive to the demands of the service, occasionally working outside normal office hours for events.

You will be required to attend and lead regular team meetings, provide one to one supervision time for staff, as well as project or caseload related meetings. You will also have occasional visits to early years and childcare providers. Meetings will be mix of face to face and online. You'll be provided with a laptop to support remote and agile working.

Quality early education provision can impact positively on outcomes for children; in this role and being part of this team, you can be helping improve the lives of thousands of children in Leicester, as well as enabling families to work, due to accessible childcare support.

We are looking for a driven individual, who can lead multiple complex work programmes. Manage and deploy resources to maximise efficiency.

You will need a sound knowledge and significant experience of the early years and childcare sector. You should have excellent communication skills, to build and maintain relationships with providers as well as work collaboratively across services and stakeholders. You should have strong analytical data and finance skills and experience of managing national initiatives and programmes. It is also important to have experience of managing people.

To Apply

Please submit your application by answering the application questions and attaching your CV to your submission.

For an informal conversation about this role, please contact Claire at Claire.Lakin@leicester.gov.uk