Head of Sufficiency & Brokerage

Location: Norfolk 

Job Type: Temporary 

Duration of booking: Expected to last 7 months with possible extension

Proposed start date: ASAP

Pay Rates: up to £450 per day Umbrella 

Hours / Working Days: 37.5 hours per week / Monday to Friday, 9am – 5pm This role can be hybrid/ remote and potential travel to providers/services as required

Based: Office/WFH

We are seeking an experienced strategic leader to drive our Sufficiency, Brokerage and Data functions within Children’s Services. This role is ensuring enough high-quality, safe, and sustainable homes for children in care, on the edge of care, and those with complex needs.

This is a critical leadership assignment shaping how children FLOURISH — feeling safe, nurtured, and able to lead fulfilling lives.

The Role

As Head of Sufficiency & Brokerage, you will:

• Lead placement sufficiency, market shaping, and provider relationship management across Children’s Services
• Oversee brokerage functions to ensure timely, needs-led and value-for-money placement decisions
• Strengthen communication, accountability, and collaboration across social work, commissioning and the wider market
• Use sufficiency data to drive insight, business case development and improved decision-making
• Intervene in escalated provider or placement issues to secure safe, high-quality outcomes
• Provide strategic reporting and advice to senior leaders and elected members
• Lead the next phase of the Sufficiency Strategy—reviewing impact, identifying gaps, and driving continuous improvement

Key Priorities of the Assignment

Delivering the Sufficiency Strategy (2023–27)

• Ensure homes enable children to FLOURISH — feeling safe, supported and able to thrive
• Support the goals of:
  • Keeping families together
  • Providing the right care for children in care
  • Improving financial stability across Children’s Services
• Review and analyse sufficiency data to assess impact, identify gaps, and drive improvements
• Hold the provider market to account through strong relationship and performance management
• Strengthen communication and partnership working between:
  • Social work teams
  • Commissioning and sufficiency teams
  • External providers and the wider market
• Support escalated cases involving individual young people or providers, ensuring safe, high-quality homes
• Oversee the design, implementation, and management of sufficiency dashboards and data systems
• Create children’s social care dashboards covering:
  • Children in care
  • Children with disabilities
  • Children on the edge of care
• Lead development of governance processes for sufficiency reporting, critical analysis and decision-making
• Support social work, finance and transformation teams to use sufficiency data effectively in business case development

Outputs expected:

• A suite of sufficiency dashboards for Children’s Social Care
• Enhanced governance processes for sufficiency reporting and analysis
• Improved systems supporting timely, value-for-money placements into high-quality homes

Essential:

• Proven experience leading similar sufficiency, commissioning, data or improvement projects
• Strong knowledge of Power BI and database systems such as Liquid Logic
• Ability to critically analyse and interpret complex data to drive service improvement
• Confident, curious, and able to challenge constructively
• Able to work autonomously with social care, education, commissioning, finance and transformation teams
• Strong relationship management and change leadership experience

Desirable:

• Experience within Children’s Social Care
• Understanding of the commissioning cycle and provider market