Head of Public Health Commissioning

About the Role

Brighton and Hove City Council is seeking to appoint a visionary and experienced Head of Public Health commissioning. Reporting directly to the Director of Public Health, you will play a pivotal role in driving population health transformation via commissioned services, and tackling health inequalities for those who live, work, and visit our borough.

The Public Health team is a lead agency for local health improvement, working closely with partners like the University Sussex Hospitals, Sussex Community Foundation Trust and Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust as well as the Health and Wellbeing Board to deliver evidence-based strategies that address the broad determinants of health.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Leadership: commissioning and transformation of public health services
• Collaborative Working: Building strong relationships with senior clinicians, Senior council colleagues, and elected members to enable commissioned services to maximise the benefits of a wider structure of wider health inequalities work
• Change Agent: Leading large complex projects and budgets to deliver high-quality, cost-effective services that improve health outcomes.
  

Requirements

• Demonstrable experience of operating at senior management level, leading large-scale commissioning of complex NHS or public health services across multiple service areas, including at least three of: sexual health and family planning, 0–19 and Start Well, substance misuse, and behaviour change.
• Extensive knowledge of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, statutory public health responsibilities and the Director of Public Health’s local authority and legislation
• Expert knowledge of sexual health and family planning, including datasets and performance data, 0–19 public health nursing, and substance misuse commissioning and provision.
• Knowledge of clinical incident management, serious untoward incidents, death reviews and serious case reviews, alongside strategic and practical understanding of programme leadership and oversight of multiple complex projects.

Benefits of Working for Brighton and Hove City Council

• Work-Life Balance: A mix of in-person and hybrid working will be required.
• Impact: Opportunity to work within an experienced and dedicated team of people to improve health and wellbeing for Brighton and Hove residents.
• The team: Join the Public Heath Senior Management Team who lead an experienced, committed, stable and dedicated team of public health professionals. BHCC is a training location for Public Health Registrars

For an informal conversation about the roles please contact Nicola.lang@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Encouraging a diverse workforce
Our city is known and loved for its diversity. Not only is the mixture of people, culture and skills vital to the economic and social development of the city, it's what makes Brighton & Hove such a great place to live, work and visit. We are committed to developing and retaining a workforce that is representative of the diverse communities we serve so we welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds. In order to achieve our aims of proportionate representation, we particularly encourage applicants from a BME or White Other background as well as those who identify as disabled, male or trans.

Find out more about our commitment to being a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone can achieve their potential by reading about our fair and inclusive actions, our anti-racism strategy and the work we are doing to encourage a diverse workforce (brighton-hove.gov.uk).

Why work for us?
As a council, we want to:
• be connected
• be confident
• be innovative and creative
• be diverse and inclusive
• be healthy and psychologically safe
For more information about our values and the benefits of working at the council, visit Why work for us which gives details of our wellbeing support, our benefits including leave and pensions as well as details of our training and development.

How to apply
Please read our Apply for a job at the council pages carefully. They give you all the guidance you need to complete your application as well as information on what will happen after you’ve submitted your application and at interview.

As part of your application, you will need to provide your education and career history and answer some application/shortlisting questions. Your answers to the application/shortlisting questions are the most important part of your application as they will be used in the shortlisting process to assess whether you meet the essential requirements for the role that are set out in the person specification and to decide whether you should be offered an interview. Before you start your application, please read our Shortlisting questions guidance (brighton-hove.gov.uk) as this gives important advice which will increase your chance of success in the shortlisting process.

AI advice for candidates
We are interested in hearing about your experience and skills in your own words. While we value people who know how to use AI, we ask that you minimise using it in your application.

We are keen to hear how your experience and skills align to our values and the skills and experience needed to perform well in our roles with clear real examples from you. To support you in this, we have guidance on using the STAR model which can help you ensure you are telling us your whole story. We also provide clarity on the skills we are looking for in our adverts and in the job description/person specification attached to each job advert.

All the applications we receive are read by at least two hiring managers and we do not use AI in this process. Our experience of reading applications is that those that have heavily used AI contain generic paragraphs that are strikingly similar to other applicants’ responses. This makes it extremely difficult to differentiate between applications, and doesn't give us enough evidence of your individual skills. There is a risk that we will therefore not be able to shortlist you. Instead, we recommend you ensure your application stands out by presenting clear examples of your actual skills and experiences in your own words.

Additional information
Your starting salary will be pro rata if the above position is less than 37 hours or term-time only.

Please note that this post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, and is subject to a Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) Check.

We are a workplace that supports flexibility and employee wellbeing in the way we work whilst providing the best service for our customers. Team and service working arrangements are designed to support both employee work life balance and team collaboration. These would be part of your individual working arrangements alongside any personal preference agreed with your manager in advance of joining. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team and travel to and from your contractual location would be at your own expense.

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