Team Manager - Commissioning and Placements

Wigan Council; Wigan; On-site; GBP 53,000 - 57,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working

Exclusive rewards and benefits

Job summary

Wigan Council seeks an experienced leader to oversee the home-finding function for children in care, ensuring timely access to high-quality placements. You will lead commissioning, budget oversight, and negotiations with providers, while driving market shaping and service improvements in partnership with Children’s Social Care and multi-agency stakeholders.

The role requires strong leadership, financial acumen, and collaboration to deliver compliant, innovative, child-centred care planning and

Qualifications

• Significant experience in home finding and commissioning services.
• Proven ability to lead high-performing teams in statutory children's services.
• Strong negotiation, influencing, and partnership-working skills.

Responsibilities

• Oversee the home-finding function for children in care and ensure timely access to placements.
• Lead placement commissioning, budget oversight, and provider negotiations.
• Drive market shaping, commissioning activity and service improvements in collaboration with partners.
• Ensure statutory compliance and promote child-centred approaches to care planning and delivery.

Skills

Leadership

Negotiation

Influencing

Stakeholder management

Education

Professional qualification in social care

Job description

Priority Candidates will be considered in the first instance

Wigan Life Centre South

Salary: Grade 12, £53,460 - £57,379 per annum.

37 hours per week

We're on a journey to build a workforce reflective of our Borough.

We are committed to fostering diverse teams where everybody can bring their authentic selves to work and feel that they belong. If you want to work for a Council where everybody is encouraged to meet their full potential and make a difference in our neighbourhoods, we would love to hear from you!

Your role:

We are seeking a dynamic and experienced leader to oversee the home-finding function for children in care, ensuring timely access to high-quality, value-for-money placements. You will lead placement commissioning, budget oversight, provider negotiations, and innovative sufficiency solutions while managing a high-performing team. Working collaboratively with Children's Social Care, providers, regional partners, and multi-agency stakeholders, you will drive service improvement, market shaping, and commissioning activity. The role requires strong leadership, financial acumen, and partnership-working skills to deliver positive outcomes for children and families, ensure statutory compliance, and promote innovative, child-centred approaches to care planning and service delivery.

About you:

You will need to bring significant experience in home finding and commissioning services, with a proven track record of leading high-performing teams. You will have a relevant professional qualification, management experience within statutory children's services, and a strong understanding of sufficiency, care planning, commissioning, and children's care provision. With excellent leadership, negotiation, and influencing skills, you will build effective partnerships and drive positive outcomes for children and families. You will be confident making complex decisions, managing competing priorities, and contributing to regulatory inspections. A collaborative, innovative approach and a commitment to high-quality, compliant practice are essential for success in this role.

About us:

The team are innovative in their approach and delivery, risk aware not risk averse and open to doing things differently. We adopt a collaborative approach with all our stakeholders ensuring we are embedded in all their processes and decision making.

The Progress with Unity plan is a place movement for change for the next decade, bringing a new era for Wigan Borough. It draws on the strengths of our individual organisations, recognising that together we can achieve much more for our communities by delivering on our 2 place missions; create fair opportunities for all children, families, residents and businesses and make our towns and neighbourhoods flourish for those who live and work in them.

Here at Wigan, we are proud to support flexible working patterns, when the service can accommodate this. We also take a blended approach to where we work, depending on the work we do. This may include working from home, the office, or the community. We like to thank our employees for their hard work and commitment by giving them the opportunity to access a range of exclusive rewards and benefits click here to find out more about working for #TeamWigan.

To be appointed to this role you must be able to prove your right to work in the UK, and you must maintain a valid (active) right to work. Please note, at present we are not a licenced sponsor. Please visit the link below to check you qualify to apply. Prove your right to work to an employer: Overview - GOV.UK www.gov.uk Prove your right to work to an employer

Wigan Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people, and vulnerable adults, and expects all employees, workers and volunteers to share this commitment. Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility. As part of this commitment, Wigan Council operates robust Safer Recruitment procedures

For further information, please contact Jessica Smith - 01942 404909

Interview dates:

Priority Candidates: Tuesday 15th September 2026

All other Candidates: Wednesday 16th September 2026

If you have completed the GM Elevate (Leadership Development) Programme, please indicate this within the 'About You' or 'Supporting Statement' section of your application.

Supporting Documents

Job Specificaiton

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