Band 7- Contracts Manager

Contracts Manager:

The post holder will be required to maintain constructive relationships with a broad range of stakeholders.

The Contract Manager is expected to matrix work with colleagues in other teams with the Complex Care team Directorate and the wider ICB. The post holder will build excellent working relationships with key stakeholders, notably local authority colleagues and service providers, conducting themselves in accordance with the ICB's organisational principles and values at all times.

The post holder will lead the provision of an efficient, effective, and high-quality professional and well-coordinated Contracting service, capable of meeting all statutory, regulatory and NHS contractual requirements and ensuring alignment with and delivery of NCL ICB commissioning intentions.

Successful delivery of this role involves tight contract management for local held contracts by ensuring robust systems for proactive contract performance monitoring that enable activity and clinical quality indicators to be specified, monitored, under-performance acted upon and future procurement decisions to be made.



Key Working Relationships:

Working within the Complex Care Team, the post holder will manage contracts primarily within
Complex care, including Children and Young People, Learning Disabilities and Mental Health Delivering provider relationship management support and specialist contract advice to the portfolio of contracts, throughout the contracting cycle.

Main Responsibilities:

• Working With Complex Care Commissioning teams, support and facilitate the contract negotiations work and collaborating with the providers and clinical leads across NCL ICB and Local Authority Partners.
• To manage contract compliance and delivery of service standards with a prompt resolution of contractual and service issues in accordance with the NHS Serious Incident Framework
• To performance manage a portfolio of contracts ensuring continuous improvement and added value to support the delivery of NCL ICB's commissioning intentions ensuring national and local requirements are robustly reflected. Identify underperformance and support intervention where performance is considered below target and/or in breach of contract, in line with contractual terms and conditions.
• Oversee contracts and provide assurance, including financial delivery of plans relating to a portfolio of contracts; ensure that the costs of services are value for money and develop strategies to ensure that as far as possible and appropriate.
• Analyse trends in spend and activity and undertake benchmarking to confirm value for money. Ensure that the relationship between activity, cost and performance is made explicit within all contracting activity.
• Responsible for collaborating effectively with others to enable multi- disciplinary involvement in developing and agreeing contracts.
• Engage collaboratively with teams to investigate the causes of any variance from target/plan and proactively contribute to the implementation of solutions.
• Co-ordinate and compile all returns relevant to this area of work ensuring returns to NHSE/I templates are timely and complete.
• Chair relevant workstream meetings
• Develop reports and analysis for monitoring and development of new and existing schemes. Collating and sharing reporting with
• Expand on knowledge, skills, and experience within personal professional development.
• Collate quality and patient safety reporting from various sources to assist with the management of provider contracts. Where necessary escalating information to wider ICB teams including but limited to quality monitoring initiatives e.g., Quality Assurance Framework (QAF) and Provider Concerns Meetings.
• Work with clinical and corporate subject matter experts to maximise value in all contracts through the use of all appropriate and available contract levers.
• Lead on any contract variations that arise annually or as part of any approved changes following agreed change management processes and standing financial instructions.
• To support the partnership working approach with statutory, voluntary, and independent sector agencies in relation to contracting issues.
• Ensure that all procurement and contracting activities are carried out in accordance with legislation, health policies and procedures and principles of good practice including ethics and probity.
• Where necessary, to support the Commissioning, Brokerage, and Invoicing teams in providing technical and business support in building business cases, achieving provider engagement and Board approval.
• Support and inform the targeting of resources, monitoring, implementation, and evaluation of the tasks/projects by providing high quality support including complex information and analysis, communications and stakeholder management.
• To process annual inflationary uplifts in line with the ICB's Uplift Policy. Follow ICB uplift principals and utilise negotiation skills to ensure affordability of uplifts.
• To conduct reviews, panel meetings, appeals and escalations according to the Uplift policy.
• To maintain robust reporting on uplifts throughout the annual cycle to enable on time and accurate reporting

Brook Street NMR is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy.