Specialist Advisor - Local Authority Assessments

Are you committed to helping us regulate health and social care within England?

When thinking about what drives you every day in your job, what keeps you motivated and passionate about your work, what comes to mind? For 3000+ people at the CQC we end each day knowing that we have made a difference to the lives of those most in need in our communities.

We make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, equitable, high-quality care and encourage services to improve. We are looking for people who are caring, demonstrate integrity, aspire to excellence, committed to equitable and inclusive services and care and work well as part of a team to join with us and share in this sense of achievement. If you would like to help us make a positive impact to health and social care within England and deliver a service of excellence to the public then read on.

Accountabilities:

• Proactively participate with CQC representatives on assessment and investigation activity to identified Local Authorities and provide relevant advice and input to your specialist area, to support appropriate judgements to be made.

• Effectively assess individual and team capability through leading interviews.

• Undertake any identified Local Authority assessment specific preparation e.g to identify and review key documents which will support your analysis of the Local Authority and contribute to briefing call.

• Assess the Local Authority against the 9 Quality Standards

• Observe the highest standards of impartiality, integrity and objectivity in relation to advice and activities that are undertaken on CQC's behalf.

• Ensure all work carried out is within the scope of that required and relevant CQC policies/guidance are adhered to.

• Maintain the confidentiality of information that is accessed in the course of work undertaken for CQC

• Participate in a 1- 2 day remote induction, hosted virtually

• Provide expert advice and guidance to the assessment team about best practices in local authorities.

• Engage with stakeholders during assessments, to promote transparency and accountability.

• Participate in the quality assurance processes and give clear, practical, written feedback.

What you will bring...

• Strong understanding of how Local Authorities work in the health and/or social care sector and the Care Act 2014.

• Have up to date skills, knowledge and experience of Implementing the Care Act 2014 part 1.

• Proven experience in your specialist area.

• Be currently employed in a managerial or leadership capacity within a Local Authority, or other aligned relevant organisation.

• Highly developed influencing, analytical and communication skills.

• A track record of working successfully with senior teams in large organisations.

Being a Specialist Advisor

This role can be undertaken as either a Casual Worker, paid directly to a personal bank account by the CQC for attending in your own time (non-working days, annual leave) or as a seconded position if your service is registered with the CQC and agrees to the secondment. Seconded SpAs' organisations agree in principle that their employees can attend CQC inspections and the seconded SpA seeks their line manager's permission to take leave to attend individual inspections, which can last from one to three days. The seconded SpA's organisation then invoices the CQC for the time the SpA spent away from their substantive role.

You will be offered opportunities to support inspection with 6 weeks' notice whenever possible, however, you will also be contacted for more short notice support on occasions. You are under no obligation to accept an inspection should it be offered and it not be convenient for you. We are not able to guarantee you a set number of inspection opportunities in a one-year period. You may be offered one a month or one in the whole year depending on the focus of the inspection programme.

If successful at interview we aim to conclude your pre-engagement checks within a 6-8 week window, please complete all forms and take actions to assist the team in achieving this. You will be provided with a dedicated onboarding peer who will support you in completing pre-engagement checks and will be on hand to answer any questions you have. You will be required to have a current DBS certificate under 3 years old and we require references going back three years. If you've been with the same employer for three years' then we'll only require one reference.

Expected time commitment for formal assessments...

• Must be able to commit to at least 2 full assessments within a 12-month period.

• Preparation and briefing calls - 3-4 hours.

  Where possible attend the pre site visit LA senior leadership meeting with CQC.

• Fieldwork activity - on site for a minimum of 2 days per assessment.

  Advice to team regarding documentation and interviews - 6 hours in total, but on an as and when needed basis.

• Input into quality assurance - 6-8 hours, split into sessions.

• Approximate 5 days total commitment, per assessment.

• Must attend a local authority assessment induction.

Eligibility to work

If you are successful at interview, CQC will need to verify your right to work in the UK using digital identity verification. Details of how to complete the right to work check will be provided as part of the conditional offer of employment. If we are unable to verify your right to work digitally, we are required to complete this face to face at one of our CQC Offices. Please be aware that we are unable to progress any offer of employment until right to work in the UK is confirmed.

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