This is an exciting opportunity to play a key role in commissioning high-quality services for children in care and care leavers, supporting the delivery of Cornwall’s Better Homes sufficiency strategy.
Working within the Together for Families directorate, you will contribute to shaping and delivering high-quality, sustainable services that enable children and young people to live in safe, stable and nurturing homes, as close to their communities as possible.
The successful candidate will work closely with social care colleagues, including social workers and the Council’s Home Hub, building strong and effective relationships to ensure commissioning activity is fully aligned with operational practice and placement decision-making.
As Commissioning Manager, you will lead on the design, procurement and management of services for children in care and care leavers. You will play a central role in implementing Cornwall Council’s Better Homes sufficiency strategy, ensuring that local provision meets the needs of children and young people.
You will drive innovation in contracting and market development, supporting the creation of a diverse and sustainable provider market. This includes securing local sufficiency, ensuring best value, and improving outcomes through evidence-led and outcome-focused commissioning.
The role spans the full commissioning cycle—analysis, planning, delivery and review—using data, insight and feedback to develop market intelligence that shapes service design. You will develop specifications, contracts and performance frameworks that set clear expectations for quality, safeguarding and impact, while supporting continuous improvement across services.
A key aspect of the role is building strong collaborative relationships with operational colleagues to ensure a shared understanding of need and a coordinated approach to placements and support. Through this, you will help reduce reliance on out-of-area placements and strengthen local provision.
You will also work in partnership with colleagues across health, education and the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector to develop integrated pathways of support. The role requires proactive market engagement, co-production with children and young people, and close working with providers to foster innovation and resilience in the market.
You will manage a portfolio of contracts, ensuring compliance with governance and procurement frameworks while maintaining a strong focus on quality assurance, performance and outcomes. This includes monitoring service delivery, benchmarking performance and driving continuous improvement to ensure services deliver meaningful impact and value for money.
As a visible and influential leader, you will represent the Council at local and regional forums, contribute to system-wide improvement and respond to emerging pressures and policy developments. Through your work, you will help ensure children in care and care leavers in Cornwall are supported to thrive, achieve stability and independence, and experience the best possible outcomes.
Full-time position with flexible and hybrid working arrangements available, supporting a healthy work-life balance while meeting service needs.
Please read the role profile for the full details of this role attached below in this advert
Cornwall Council deliver services to more than half a million local people and over five million visitors a year. Working here - Cornwall Council
We are happy to talk about flexible working options such as part-time or compressed hours. More examples of our flexible working opportunities can be found here - flexible working options
Fairness and inclusion are at the heart of our vision for Cornwall. In order to best serve our communities, we are striving to achieve a diverse workforce that is inclusive of all backgrounds, cultures and identities; e.g., race, disability, sex, gender reassignment status, age, religion and sexual orientation. We are an equal opportunities and Disability Confident employer, and we will assess applicants on their merits.
Cornwall Council is committed to safeguarding and following safer recruitment principles to help make sure our staff and volunteers are suitable to work with children, young people and adults at risk. It’s a vital part of creating a safe and positive environment and making a commitment to keeping all service users safe from harm.
A unique Council that has secured the UK's first devolution deal for a rural County! We deliver services to more than half a million local people and to over five million visitors a year.
*Cornwall - The Place: http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/jobs-and-careers/work-and-volunteer-for-us/cornwall-the-place/
With its beautiful beaches, stunning countryside and superb community spirit, Cornwall is a great place to live.
*Cornwall - Our Offer: http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/jobs-and-careers/work-and-volunteer-for-us/our-offer/
With a competitive employee reward package that attracts, retains and motivates our employees; open plan working environments in most offices, good business systems and a can do culture where talented people thrive, Cornwall Council is a great place to work.
*Cornwall - Our Job of the Week: http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/joboftheweek
*Cornwall - What we do and how we work: http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/jobs-and-careers/work-and-volunteer-for-us/what-we-do-and-how-we-work/
Services: Care for the elderly, children’s safeguarding, libraries, road maintenance, fire and rescue service, recycling, parks, street cleaning, countryside management, social housing, town planning, tourism support and trading standards.
We deliver these services through our employees who work directly for the Council and through our many other Council owned companies and organisations; CORMAC, Cornwall Housing, Tempus Leisure, Newquay Airport and Cornwall Development Company.
We also have close links with Cornwall’s health organisations, colleges and universities and work closely with the police, town and parish councils and the voluntary sector.
*Cornwall - Council and Democracy: http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/
We have 123 elected councillors and as Cornwall is such a large rural area, our councillors and the towns and parishes they represent are grouped into 19 community networks, which are the focus of our local community work.
