We are looking for highly motivated, passionate individuals for the role of Contract Support Officer to support us on our exciting journey of transforming and improving services for local residents. 

About the team

You will be joining a Contracts team in a new commissioning service within the Council’s Adult Social Care Services to deliver transformational change and service improvement for the benefit of our residents.  The team administers a large number of contracts commissioned to deliver a variety of social care and public health services to adults and children in the city, as well as partnership agreements with other governmental bodies.  The team acts as a central point of reference for the contractual, performance and financial management and governance of the commissioned services and partnership agreements.  The team mainly works from home, meeting for a team day in the office once a month.  Desks are available to work regularly in the office too, if desired.

Adult Social Care are two years into their transformation programme and have far reaching and ambitious plans to build a sustainable service that supports our residents to live independent and fulfilling lives in communities that work together for the benefit of all.

The Contract Support Officer role offers the opportunity to be at the forefront of our ongoing transformation journey and provides significant opportunities for professional development within a supportive and collaborative culture. 

About the role

Contract Support Officers work on a wide range of social care and public health contracts, with a focus on ensuring contracts are awarded and managed in line with the council’s policies and procedures and procurement legislation.  This includes:

• working with commissioners on contract documents for new and re-designed services;
• ensuring that performance monitoring requirements are included in every contract to enable performance management during the whole life of the contract;
• ensuring that all governance and decision-making processes are completed to enable the contract to be placed and managed;
• liaising with colleagues from legal services, finance and procurement in the development and ongoing management of the contracts;
• raising and managing purchase orders to enable contractual payments;
• creating and maintaining clear, auditable contract documentation such as delegated decisions, requests for direct awards, variations to contract, signed contracts, the council’s Contract Register etc, to support the council’s legal obligations for transparency in procurement
• implementing agreed systems to ensure ongoing monitoring, identification, and mitigation of risk in line with policies;

For further information about this role please view the job description.

About you:

We are looking for a highly motivated individual, with excellent communication and organisational skills and the ability to maintain a substantial and varied workload.  Key skills will include:

• Organisational skills, including ability to manage priorities and to work on own initiative;
• Good analytical skills, ability to assimilate, interpret and present complex information from a range of varied sources (sometimes conflicting), both quantitative (financial, activity) and qualitative;
• High level of attention to detail, including an excellent memory for the details of multiple projects at the same time;
• Excellent IT skills, especially on Excel and Word;
• Ability to solve problems and advise commissioners on a variety of contractual and procedural issues;
• Ability to follow agreed processes and procedures, while also being able to understand when flexibility is needed
• Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to work with managers, providers and other stakeholders;

What we can offer you:

Here at SCC we have a range of different perks and benefits, a few examples can be found below.

• A generous local government pension scheme.
• Flexible working (role dependant). Up to 13 days of Flexi Leave.
• Hybrid working arrangements (role dependant).
• 25 days annual leave (pro rata), plus bank holidays.
• Online Benefits – salary sacrifice schemes, benefits and discounts.
• Great local transport links.
• Employee assistance programme with access to our health wellbeing and support.

For further information on our benefits package please visit: Employee benefits (southampton.gov.uk)

If you feel you have the necessary background, experience, and skills to undertake this role we would like to hear from you.

Contact details for informal discussion:

For further information and details regarding the Contracts Support Officer role please contact Jo Hughes, Contracts Officer, on 023 8083 4067 or Joanne.Hughes@southampton.gov.uk

Recruitment contact details:

Email: recruitment@southampton.gov.uk
Tel: 023 8083 4033

For more information about SCC please visit Southampton City Council
Follow us on social media for regular updates on our featured jobs and latest news.
Facebook    YouTube