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To apply for this role you will need to provide a personal statement (max 1250 words) to demonstrate your relevant skills and knowledge, and outline your experience of the following:

• Experience of sourcing and procurement of products and/or of following a commissioning framework (lead criteria)
• Experience of managing a budget and resources
• Effective relationship building skills and management of stakeholders and/or suppliers

Please note if there is a high volume of applications for the role, sifting will be based on the lead criteria only.

Background Information

HM Prisons and Probation Service (HMPPS) is responsible for the delivery of probation services in England and Wales. In 2015, the Transforming Rehabilitation programme saw the landscape of probation services change significantly, with the creation of 21 privately run Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) and a publicly owned National Probation Service. These reforms led to around 40,000 more offenders receive post-sentence supervision in the community. In July 2018, the Justice Secretary announced the intent to undertake a fundamental reform of probation services with a further announcement, in June 2020, as to the intention to renationalise the service. The Prime Minister has also announced the recruitment of 20,000 new police officers and a series of reforms to sentencing policy to deliver the Governments’ ambitious future vision for the Criminal Justice System.

This suite of changes has, and will continue to have, a fundamental impact on how probation services operate, demand on the system, and the way that services are delivered to offenders who serve all or part of their sentence in the community. This in turn has a crucial impact on our workforce. We recognise that to make sure our probation workforce is fit for the future, resilient and able to respond to upcoming challenges we must do something more to make sure we attract the right people to the profession; ensure that every member of the workforce is able to build their capability and skills on an ongoing basis; allow those working across probation the opportunity to develop and further their careers; and, make sure that our workforce feels valued and appreciated for their sterling work. To this end, the Probation Workforce Programme has been established. This rapidly expanding programme team offers exciting opportunities to lead the design and delivery of a new strategic approach to workforce planning, standard setting and learning and development across the probation service, and will require strong and collaborative working across HMPPS and MOJ.

It is expected this role will be extended for at least a further 12 months.

Overview of the job

This role sits in the new Learning Design Faculty within the Probation Workforce Programme. The purpose of this role is to provide end-to-end management of the learning procurement and sourcing approach and to maintain the standards and measures to ensure effective evaluation, quality assurance and continuous improvement of learning. The post-holder will report to the Head of Learning Design Faculty.

The post-holder will be a strong advocate for change, championing and nurturing the new L&D model, processes and ways of working; motivating others to understand and embrace the change in culture for learning and continuous professional development across the organisation.

This role is non-operational and has formal line-management responsibility for two specialist roles, and the L&D Improvement Team of four mixed level roles.

This role is HQ based and will require occasional travel to other HMPPS sites/regions.

Summary

This role covers three areas of L&D:

Commissioning

The post holder will work closely with the Head of Learning Design Faculty to implement the new single commissioning route, assisting them with the creation of the service commitments e.g. putting clear timeframes in place for responding to commissioning requests, and supporting the setting of triage assessment criteria to assess and prioritise learning requests against strategic priorities. They will manage the Commissioning Specialist; and will promote and oversee the learning commissioning process, ensuring the successful embedding of the triage process and monitoring the response to learning requirements, ensuring the optimal learning design and/or delivery solution is commissioned either internally or externally within the agreed budget and service commitments.

Outsourcing

The post-holder will be commercially minded; managing the L&D outsourcing costs (anticipated budget of £1m to £3m) and overseeing the outsourcing approach. They will manage the Outsourcing Specialist; supporting the identification of quality, costeffective learning suppliers to be incorporated into the L&D dynamic marketplace (managed by Commercial and Contract Services) and ensuring that learning requirements put forward for outsourcing meet the criteria and are delivered within the agreed budget and timescales.  

The post-holder will mitigate and escalate procurement and sourcing barriers and risks. They will adhere to the defined commercial, contracting and quality standards and controls for the sourcing and procurement of learning products; defining and applying robust evaluation measures to assess the quality and value for money of learning suppliers. They will escalate contract management issues and/or risks to the Head of Learning Design Faculty as required.  

L&D Improvement

The post-holder will manage the L&D improvement team; working with the team to set and maintain quality controls, best practice learning evaluation guidance and criteria for ensuring a good learning experience. They will work with the Head of Learning Design Faculty and Learning Strategy to support the creation, testing and implementation of the learning quality standards framework; setting, establishing and maintaining processes for managing and maintaining quality assurance across end-to-end learning design and delivery. They will oversee the L&D responses to SFOs and HMIP inspections; escalating issues and/or risks to the Head of Learning Design Faculty.    

Responsibilities, Activities and Duties

The job holder will be required to carry out the following responsibilities, activities and duties

• Manage the end-to-end learning procurement and sourcing approach.
• Implement, promote and oversee the learning commissioning route.
• Oversee and monitor adherence to the learning procurement and sourcing service commitments and triage assessment criteria.
• Ensure objective, transparent feedback is published on learning requests and commissioning decisions.
• Manage L&D outsourcing costs; ensuring value for money.
• Oversee the relationship with Commercial and Contract Services; ensuring the effective management and maintenance of contractual relationships with suppliers.
• Provide strategic guidance on the external L&D marketplace and trends.
• Maintain the standards and measures to ensure effective evaluation, quality assurance and continuous improvement of learning.
• Manage and maintain a data-driven approach for proactively collating, assessing and managing learning demand.
• Oversee the quality and timely L&D response to SFOs and HMIP inspections.
• Manage the workload allocation across Commissioning, Outsourcing and L&D Improvement; responding flexibly to changes in scope and/or demand.
• Attend programme meetings/Boards on behalf of the Head of Learning Design Faculty when required.

The duties/responsibilities listed above describe the post as it is at present and is not intended to be exhaustive. The job holder is expected to accept reasonable alterations and additional tasks of a similar level that may be necessary. Significant adjustments may require re-examination under the Job Evaluation Scheme and shall be discussed in the first instance with the job holder.

Behaviours

• Managing a Quality Service
• Working Together
• Changing and Improving
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Delivering at Pace

Experience

• Experience of sourcing and procurement of products and/or of following a commissioning framework.
• Experience of managing a budget and resources.
• Effective relationship building skills and management of stakeholders and/or suppliers.
• Desirable: Knowledge of the Civil Service commercial/procurement framework.