Early Years Funding Coordinator

We are seeking an experienced and motivated Early Years Funding Coordinator to provide strategic leadership and operational management of early education funding across the city.

About the Role

Working within the Education – Early Years and Childcare Service, you will ensure eligible children and families can access high-quality, fully funded early years provision. You will play a key role in supporting vulnerable and disadvantaged children to achieve the best possible start in life, while ensuring public funding is used responsibly, compliantly and to maximum impact.

You will lead and oversee the delivery of early education funding across Portsmouth, ensuring services meet national and local requirements and deliver value for money. You will manage the day-to-day operation of early years funding programmes, supporting vulnerable and disadvantaged children to take up their funded entitlements.

Working closely with families, childcare providers and partners, you will coordinate targeted outreach activity and provide clear information, advice and guidance. You’ll line manage the Early Education Funding Officer and Funding Outreach Officers, ensuring strong governance, robust processes and compliance with financial and safeguarding requirements. You will also work with key stakeholders to monitor performance and support continuous improvement across early years funding services.

The ideal candidate

You will bring strong leadership experience, excellent communication skills and in-depth knowledge of early years funding.

You will need to have:

Qualifications

• A recognised professional qualification in social work, education, health or a degree in childcare or other relevant field.

Experience and Skills

• Proven experience working across early years and childcare services, children’s services, health and partner agencies
• Strong understanding of early education funding streams and eligibility criteria
• Experience of project management, performance monitoring and evaluation
• Sound knowledge of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children
• Experience of line management, staff supervision and professional development
• Confidence in presenting information clearly to a range of audiences
• A strong commitment to equality, diversity and inclusive practice

Please ensure that you download and read the full job profile attached for the details and expectations of this role, paying particular attention the section 'Who is the person' as you will need to refer to this when completing your Personal statement.

Working Arrangements:You will be required to work 1-2 days in the office each week

Interview date:Thursday 7th May 2026

About Portsmouth City Council

Portsmouth City Council is a unique organisation, committed to making a difference, and is guided by core values that set who we are as people, what we stand for, and how we act.

We are committed to our values of respect, integrity, collaboration, inclusivity and being people-focussed. These values set out how we can contribute to the success of the council and our own success as individuals. Learn more about our values and behaviours.

Application process

We anonymise applications during application & shortlisting to ensure only relevant information is considered.

As part of your application, we ask that you complete a personal statement, this statement is crucial and is where you must demonstrate how you meet the requirements of the job against each of the points described in the'Who is the Person'points on the Job Profile using examples from your experience or transferable skills. This might be through qualifications or descriptive examples from your work / personal experience.

We are a disability confident employer and Armed Forces Covenant gold standard. More information can be found at Equality, diversity and inclusion - Careers portal

We are committed to offering an interview to all those candidates that qualify under our corporate commitments and meet the minimum criteria, however, for roles that receive a large number of applications, we will select the candidates that best meet the minimum criteria.

You will need to demonstrate that you have the Right to Work in the UK. No post will be offered without it.

Please note : We are not able to offer sponsorship for this position.

Safeguarding

Portsmouth City Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, and young people, and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Every post is subject to PCC and Portsmouth Safeguarding Children Partnership safer recruitment procedures.

Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) at Standard/Enhanced level will be required prior to any offer of employment and this post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. Please read the relevant DBS privacy notice before submitting any information.

Should you require any support in completing the application form please contact recruit@portsmouthcc.gov.uk or call the recruitment team on 023 92 616 800.