Research and policy officer jobs in birmingham
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About the role
As one of two Regional Programmes Manager, you’ll inspire and lead a team of Senior Programmes Officers and Kinship Family Workers to effectively deliver high quality support services for kinship families across Greater London, the South of England and the Midlands.
You’ll do this by working in close collaboration with local authority teams who have commissioned our services and other funders where appropriate.
You’ll have accountability and ownership for ensuring we deliver impactful services for kinship carers and that we meet targets for our commissioned services. Working collaboratively with our other managers in other services, you’ll ensure we’re delivering high impact programmes.
You’ll ensure your team have real clarity and direction on their role and responsibilities - encouraging curiosity, learning and solutions-focused thinking. As a leader in the organisation, you are a key model for the team.
Your team will deliver the following programmes:
- Kinship Connected – in-person one-to-one support and support groups in the community
- Kinship Reach – remote one-to-one support and virtual support groups
- Kinship Ready – online workshops to prepare new and prospective special guardians for their role, as well as wraparound one-to-one support (in one local authority)
You will also manage a new role of Grants Officer - London, funded by the Aviva Foundation.
As one of our deputy safeguarding leads, you’ll be part of our key safeguarding structure. This means you’ll take ownership to make sure our people feel confident and well supported to demonstrate best practice and making sure safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility.
Key responsibilities include:
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Oversee the day-to-day running of programmes, supporting mostly home-based Senior Programmes Workers and Kinship Family Workers to ensure high quality, consistent and impactful programme delivery.
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Meet performance targets as directed.
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Create and keep developing processes and systems which support consistency across all programmes, ensuring good quality documentation and manualisation on Notion.so
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Develop quality assurance frameworks with other service managers and directors.
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Support your team to establish and deliver in-person and virtual peer support groups regionally and generate engagement with kinship carers.
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Line management and supervision of Senior Programmes Workers and Kinship Family Workers as required.
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Actively encourage personal development and support staff to deliver key targets and outcomes and ensure high levels of wellbeing.
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Work with the Director of Services and Digital, Head of Programmes and the Business Development team to develop proposals and present to local authorities to secure commissions.
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Manage the delivery of commissioned contracts through collaborative relationships with local authorities, ensuring targets are met.
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Manage the programmes and services within budget, in accordance with Kinship’s financial procedures and ensure the reporting of progress in line with funder requirements.
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Work actively and positively with other managers within Kinship to ensure sharing of best practice, problem solving, relevant connections and consistency of delivery across England and Wales.
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Act as a deputy safeguarding lead at Kinship
Essential requirements include:
- Substantial experience in managing a regional service or programme with high quality outputs (national experience desirable but not essential).
- Substantial experience of managing, developing and evaluating effective and innovative services for families experiencing crisis and experience in reaching ‘hidden communities’ and a commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion.
- Experience of leading and managing continuous improvement in changing contexts.
- Experience of governance and managing risk on high profile service delivery.
- Experience of ensuring that services are designed and led with user needs at the heart, ensuring that the voices of our kinship carers inform ongoing design and development of our programmes.
- High quality digital and data literacy and using technology to help us to be better in our processes. You’ll have to own Salesforce and be a massive champion for the team. You will be accountable for ensuring they use it well.
- Substantial experience of leading high-performing service teams including managing wellbeing, development and performance.
How to apply
In place of a cover letter, you will be asked to answer the following five questions, alongside providing your CV. Please keep your answers to a maximum of 250 words.
- Tell us why you’re interested in working for Kinship in this role and what experience you bring that would make you successful? This is an opportunity to tell us about you, your experience and your values.
- Please give an example where you have managed a successful regional programme or service (this could also be national). Please include scale, key performance indicators and outcome. What made it a success?
- What makes you a great team manager? Give one example of how you have supported teams and individuals to flourish and one example when you have had to step in to address behaviour or performance issues. (This is an opportunity to share your enthusiasm for supporting others to develop and deliver to a high standard. You can share evidence of how your approach has worked and how you’ve tackled challenges and difficult conversations along the way).
- Quality assurance and consistency is key to making sure our programmes deliver impact for our kinship carers. This includes ensuring your team are following processes, using our case management system effectively and have the tolls to do their role. Please describe how you would approach this at Kinship using a previous example.
- In this role you will be a deputy safeguarding lead at Kinship. This is a key role, the lives of kinship carers are incredibly complex. Give one example of a safeguarding situation that required your response in a previous role. Explain what your rationale and thought process was. How did you hold appropriate boundaries and progress actions to effectively safeguard vulnerable children and adults?
Key Dates
- Application deadline: Friday 9th May, 10pm
- First interview: Online – Tuesday 6 May
- Second interview: In person (Vauxhall, London) – Tuesday 13 May (travel expenses covered if required)
About Kinship
We are Kinship. The leading kinship care charity in England and Wales. We’re here for kinship carers – friends or family who step up to raise a child when their parents aren’t able to.
We are made by and for our community of kinship carers. Like family, relationships run deep. And we hear their experiences; for too long they have been isolated without the help they need.
We support, advise and inform kinship carers. Connecting them so they feel empowered. Because a child needs the love and warmth of a thriving family.
We develop research, campaigns and policy solutions. Creating positive change across society. Because for kinship families, love alone is not enough.
Through our work we harness frustrations to fuel passion for change. And tough experiences to inspire ideas that transform lives.
And as we see momentum building, we keep using evidence to demonstrate the value of kinship care. Helping kinship carers navigate challenging circumstances. Believing in a child’s potential.
Join us. Together, let’s commit to change for kinship families.
• Make sure you’ve read the job description and the essential requirements – make sure your answer reflects those points in the requirements very clearly.
• Really tell us why you want to work for Kinship. We’re interested in working with people who share our values.
• Keep your response clear – use bullets points and short paragraphs if that helps. It will help the recruitment team to really focus on your answer.
• Please do not use AI tools like ChatGPT to produce your answers. We use software to check and your application will be rejected if you do.
Registered Charity
21 - 50
We support kinship carers in their homes and communities, giving advice and helping them work through problems to find the best way forward.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Thank you!
Assistant Finance Business Partner x 2
(SEO)
£41,055 - £44,415 (National)
+ £5,000 Accountancy Allowance or £2,500 Part Qualification Allowance
The Government Property Agency is the largest property holder in government, with more than £2.1 billion in property assets and over 50% of the government's office estate. We are transforming the way the Civil Service works by creating great places to work, leading the largest commercial office programme in the UK, working towards halving carbon emissions from government offices, and achieving greater value for taxpayers. We are looking for innovative, solutions-focused people to join our team.
Representing the best covenant in the UK - His Majesty's Government - we are leading ground-breaking programmes such as the Government Hubs Programme, Whitehall Campus Programme and Net Zero Programme, as well as delivering modern and cost-effective real estate service solutions.
Innovation and progress are at the heart of our behaviours. We foster a culture of lifelong learning, where curiosity and self-improvement are encouraged, and we're dedicated to becoming a leading, inclusive employer both in the external market and throughout the Civil Service. Our strong emphasis on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) is not just about driving inclusion across our organisation, it is also about ensuring our services meet the needs of government departments and the civil servants who use our spaces.
Join our dynamic and diverse team that leads with purpose, improving sustainability, nurturing social value, driving inclusivity and flexibility, and kickstarting economic growth. We are driven by purpose, and you can be part of it too: where you make a meaningful impact; where you influence; where your voice really matters; where you help to shape our future direction.
We are recruiting for two positions into the Workplace Projects department. These positions sit within their LCR (Lifecycle Replacement) and CRP (Client Requested Projects), supporting project managers by monitoring project progress and providing insightful management information to allow for accurate forecasting against budgets.
The responsibilities of the Assistant Finance Business Partner(s) will include:
- Producing management accounts for relevant budget holders and contributing to GPA's client budget process
- Partnering with the LCR and Net Zero / CRP programme managers and external partners to ensure that all expenditure has been accurately assessed based on project completion and integrity is applied
- That regular reconciliations and sampling of the project accounts are completed including timely project closure assessments
- Provide advice on financial treatment of project costs to ensure that all items are correctly assessed for capitalisation, and that the treatment of abortive costs and feasibility works are appropriately treated as RDEL, while being allocated to the correct projects
- Attendance at monthly stakeholder meetings to support the management of projects, supply chain and client relationships
- Supporting any client discussions as required to ensure recovery of billed amounts, keeping accrued income minimal and controlled
- Building a network internally with other finance teams to ensure smooth transition of data and knowledge between interlinked processes, and contributing as part of the wider finance team
- Preparing balance sheet reconciliations including accruals and prepayments
- Take ownership of key financial processes, including the preparation and processing of journals, while supporting both internal and external audits.
- Play a proactive role in facilitating forecasting and reporting activities, and use your analytical skills to identify trends, risks, and opportunities within the financial data to inform strategic decision-making.
Key Skills & Experience
- CCAB or equivalent part-qualified or finalist-level candidates required, full qualification desirable.
- Experience in facilities management or estates-related roles (e.g. property management, construction projects) is preferable, however candidates from other backgrounds will be considered.
- Understanding of project accounting fundamentals is essential; experience with subcontractors or procurement for facilities management is advantageous.
- Strong month-end management accounting experience required.
- Confident communicator, able to engage effectively with stakeholders from varied backgrounds.
The GPA is com
Thank you!
Financial Accountant
(HEO)
£35,175 - £39,480 (National)
plus an Accountancy Allowance of £5,000 pa (Fully Qualified) or £2,500 (Part Qualified)
The Government Property Agency is the largest property holder in government, with more than £2.1 billion in property assets and over 50% of the government’s office estate. We are transforming the way the Civil Service works by creating great places to work, leading the largest commercial office programme in the UK, working towards halving carbon emissions from government offices, and achieving greater value for taxpayers. We are looking for innovative, solutions-focused people to join our team.
Representing the best covenant in the UK – His Majesty’s Government – we are leading ground-breaking programmes such as the Government Hubs Programme, Whitehall Campus Programme and Net Zero Programme, as well as delivering modern and cost-effective real estate service solutions.
Innovation and progress are at the heart of our behaviours. We foster a culture of lifelong learning, where curiosity and self-improvement are encouraged, and we’re dedicated to becoming a leading, inclusive employer both in the external market and throughout the Civil Service. Our strong emphasis on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) is not just about driving inclusion across our organisation, it is also about ensuring our services meet the needs of government departments and the civil servants who use our spaces.
Join our dynamic and diverse team that leads with purpose, improving sustainability, nurturing social value, driving inclusivity and flexibility, and kickstarting economic growth. We are driven by purpose, and you can be part of it too: where you make a meaningful impact; where you influence; where your voice really matters; where you help to shape our future direction.
The responsibilities of the Financial Accountant will include:
- Support the production of the GPA Annual Report and Accounts including provision of consolidation returns for Cabinet Office departmental accounts and Whole of Government Accounts
- Maintain and analyse accurate accounting records including preparation and monitoring of Statement of Financial Position reconciliations and accrual and other journals
- Monitor the effectiveness of key controls including those operated by outsourced service providers
- Prepare tax returns to deadlines including monthly VAT return and Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) returns
- Support the delivery of internal and external audits including provision of fully supporting and signposted evidence, monitoring of requests and responding to auditors in a timely way
- Support continuous process efficiencies and improvements across the function
- Build relationships with key staff across Finance and the business in order to maintain effectiveness and relevance during change
Key Skills & Experience
- Good experience of financial accounting, ideally within a public sector context
- Good knowledge and experience of VAT
- Strong attention to detail and ability to analyse and interpret significant amounts of financial data
- Ability to seek out new information and self-develop
- Experience of using Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems
- Proficient using Microsoft Excel
For more information, please apply using the link, or contact Emma Fuller at our retained search agent, Robertson Bell.
The GPA is committed to representing the communities we serve by making Diversity, Equality and Inclusion part of everything we do. To ensure that we are always recruiting and retaining a diverse mix of talent, we are particularly inviting applications from candidates who are disabled, ethnically or gender diverse, and people who identify as being part of the LGBTQ+ community.