Children's Social Care Advisers and Children's Services Commissioners

See 'Attachments' for a Word description. The Department for Education (DfE) is responsible for supporting improvement in local authorities, through government intervention in response to failure or weakness in the provision of children's social care services. This is done in part through drawing down external expertise, from various sectors, to support local authorities in these circumstances.

Children's Services Commissioners

Individual appointed by the Secretary of State for Education to direct improvement arrangements where local authority children's services are inadequate. Individuals may also produce assessments of whether those services should be removed from local authority control, and, where this is the case, oversee the transfer of those services to a children's services trust.

Children's Social Care Advisers

Individual, partnership or small team who will work with local authorities in improving children's services where local arrangements for delivering those services are inadequate. Work may include: producing diagnostic reports; developing robust quality assurance mechanisms; building social care capacity; analysing a range of quantitative and qualitative data to assess improvement capability and progress; challenging senior leadership to make the changes necessary to secure improvement.

Additional information: See 'Attachments' for a Word description.

Registering on Redimo2 and the DPS

To be sourced and invited to respond to opportunities for Children's Social Care Advisers and Children's Services Commissioners published via the 'Education and children's Social Care' Dynamic Purchasing System (ECSC DPS) you will need to be an approved member of the ECSC DPS prior to the tender being issued, please be aware access to issued tenders cannot normally be granted retrospectively

As the nature of these opportunities means they are often published with limited notice we recommend that you complete the steps to become an approved member of the ECSC DPS now in readiness to access any opportunities that may be of interest. There is no guarantee that you will be able to complete the whole registration process in time to bid once an opportunity is live so we strongly recommend that you register in advance but only if you are interested and have the necessary skills to do the intervention work.

Please follow the guidance carefully and ensure you have received notification of your organisations 'registered' status with the Department for Education before applying to join the ECSC DPS, additionally you should allow at least 6 full working days for your application to join the ECSC DPS to be processed.

It is also crucial that you select the appropriate ECSC DPS skill set categories within your account profile that identify the services you can deliver as opportunities are only issued to approved ECSC DPS members which have selected the skill set categories that match those of the requirement. Children's Social Care Advisers ECSC 16 and Children's Services Commissioners ECSC 17.

Please pay careful attention to the guidance available on the link provided as these which will guide you through both the DFE registration and ECSC DPS application process.