Group Manager Contracts & Assurance

Full Time / 37 Hours Per Week / Permanent

Make a real difference to the lives of people across Leicester by leading services that help ensure care and support is safe, effective and delivered when it's needed most. As Group Manager - Health & Partnerships, you'll provide strategic leadership to a diverse portfolio, including Adult Social Care and Transport Brokerage teams, contractual oversight of the Direct Payment Support Service, and the management of quality assurance and compliance arrangements across taxi and home care providers.

This is a varied and influential role where you'll work closely with colleagues, partners and providers to drive high standards, manage risk and support positive outcomes for people drawing on care and support. You'll have flexibility in hybrid working being both office based, at Halford House or working remotely from home to the needs of the service. However, there is an expectation of at least one office-based day per week and attendance at management meetings as required. The post is based on a Monday to Thursday 8.30am to 5.00pm and Friday 8.30am to 4.30pm working pattern, with occasional out-of-hours working. Leicester City Council supports flexible working arrangements to help you achieve a healthy work-life balance.

What you'll be doing

You'll provide leadership and oversight across a diverse portfolio of services, ensuring teams operate effectively and continue to deliver high-quality, timely support for people drawing on care and support services. Working closely with managers and team leaders, you'll supervise direct reports, set priorities, provide direction and support performance to ensure services meet changing demands and organisational objectives.

A key part of the role will involve maintaining oversight of quality assurance activity, analysing performance and quality monitoring data, and identifying trends, risks and areas for improvement. You'll support the senior management team in assessing and managing risk, reviewing policies and procedures, and responding to complex concerns relating to commissioned services and provider performance. You'll also build and maintain strong relationships with providers and partners, chairing provider forums, contract concern meetings and contract management meetings, while representing the service at a range of internal and external stakeholder meetings to drive continuous improvement, compliance and positive outcomes for Leicester residents.

What you'll need

You'll be an experienced manager with a strong track record of leading and delivering care services, alongside a thorough understanding of quality monitoring, regulatory requirements and contractual standards. You'll be confident in driving service improvement, using performance information and quality assurance data to identify risks, challenge poor performance and support better outcomes across commissioned services.

Excellent communication and influencing skills are essential, with the ability to deliver difficult messages professionally and constructively when addressing provider non-compliance. You'll be highly analytical, able to interpret complex data, produce clear reports and present information to a range of audiences. Organised and resilient, you'll thrive in a fast-paced environment, working accurately under pressure while effectively balancing competing priorities, making sound decisions and responding positively to changing demands.

What we can offer you

As well as the satisfaction of helping to improve thousands of lives across Leicester, you can look forward to a work environment that encourages a healthy work/life balance. You'll enjoy generous annual leave, membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme and the option of flexible working. We'll also give you the chance to develop your skills and expertise with a variety of training and development opportunities. In addition, you can choose from a number of flexible benefits, including discounts on city buses and trains. For an illustrative value of your benefits package, take a look at our benefits calculator.

Join us

We're committed to recruiting a diverse and highly-talented workforce as we continue to build a council that is fitting and representative of our great city. That's why we've designed our recruitment process to put you at your ease, make you feel welcome and bring the best out of you. We'll do all we can to make our recruitment process as fair as possible. To help you with your application, take a look at the 'our approach to recruitment' page.

If you'd like to have a chat before applying, feel free to contact Annette Forbes on 0116 4544824 / annette.forbes@leicester.gov.uk