Graduate - Adults Commissioning

We are a hugely ambitious Council, working hard to build a sustainable organisation with a culture that rewards, values and recognises staff. We want to give everyone here the opportunity to grow and develop, personally and professionally. We are looking to recruit talented graduates to join our 2-year Graduate Scheme here at Somerset Council.

If you are looking for an impactful career, join us, and we’ll give you a wealth of experience and support – as you take on challenging, real-world projects that improve lives of our residents, communities and businesses in the beautiful county of Somerset.

We also promote a healthy work-life balance and offer flexible working arrangements wherever possible, including working from home.

You’ll be working on key commissioning activities within our Adult Social Care services.

Working alongside our lead commissioners, you’ll be given opportunities to contribute towards the whole of the commissioning process, from the design of a service to the implementation of a contract with a provider and monitoring effectiveness. You will also have opportunities to be involved in our quality assurance and performance management work.

This is an exciting role for any graduates looking to build and develop their project management skills, data analysis skills or decision-making skills within a real working environment. You’ll be using these skills to influence our transformation work, service improvement work, performance management, policy development and quality assurance processes.

Your collaborative skills will grow in this role as you’ll be working with a range of internal and external stakeholders. You will have the chance to work with senior managers, external service providers, as well as the people who use our services.

Through reports and briefings prepared by you and based on your own findings, you will be able to make a visible impact on our service and contribute positively the important work that this service does.

While helping us, we will also help you to develop through our graduate programme, by providing ongoing training and support throughout your time at Somerset Council. You’ll be part of a cohort of graduates working in other services across the Council who you will be able to train and collaborate with.

We offer ongoing support, training and guidance to help you be the best you can be. But it will really help if you:

• Have an awareness of adult social care service and relevant legislation, such as The Care Act 2014
• Have good project management skills and an understanding of project management tools.
• Are able to work collaboratively and have experience of working with multiple stakeholders.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Have a relevant and recognised degree at a minimum of 2:2 attained within the last 3 years. We will accept applicants with a degree in any field.

We’re proud to be here for the people of Somerset. And that means everyone in Somerset. An important part of this is ensuring that we are as diverse and inclusive as the people and communities we serve.

We welcome applications from a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences to enrich our team. You can always contact the hiring manager for a chat if there’s anything you want to talk about before you apply.

We are proud to offer an environment that is supportive and rewarding, working as part of a team who are passionate about the work they do to improve the lives of people in Somerset.

We offer great training and development opportunities, with supportive management. As well as this, we have some fantastic employee benefits available:

• We promote a healthy work-life balance and offer flexible working arrangements wherever possible, including working from home.
• Generous annual leave allowance, with the opportunity to purchase additional leave.
• Staff discounts in gyms.
• Employee Assistance for the times you may need some support and a variety of employee wellbeing services.
• Auto enrolment onto our generous Pension Scheme and optional pension enhancement through our Additional Voluntary Contribution scheme.
• A Flexible Benefits Scheme via salary sacrifice to obtain a cycle for work and health screenings.
• My Staff Shop offering discounts in shops, online shopping, restaurants, cinema tickets, insurance benefits and more.

For an informal chat about the role, you can contact Stephen Miles – Head of Service Commissioning – at stephen.miles@somerset.gov.uk.

The Salary for the role is Grade 12, £28,598 per annum, increasing in set increments as per the Graduate scheme to a final salary of Grade 11, £32,597 per annum.

The Graduate scheme is fixed term for a period of 2 years.

The Recruitment process for the Somerset Council Graduate Scheme will be structure into 2 stages, explained below:

• CV Submission – Sifted based on entry criteria.
• Service specific formal interview – If successfully shortlisted from application, you will be invited to attend a formal interview with the specific service you have applied to.

Dates for these interviews are to be confirmed and will be carried out over MS Teams.

*Please only apply using the link at the bottom of the advert - please do not email your CV to the recruiting manager*

If you have all the information you need, just hit the apply button - we can’t wait to hear from you.