Brokerage Officer

This is an exciting opportunity to join our team as a full-time, permanent Brokerage Officer within the Brokerage Team, part of the wider Adult Social Care Commissioning function. As a key member of the team, you will be responsible for managing and responding to referrals for care and support from frontline teams, ensuring timely responses within agreed deadlines. You will source appropriate care and support services that meet individuals' needs, while achieving best value for the local authority. This role requires you to develop strong relationships with providers and maintain a good understanding of local care markets to support effective sourcing and commissioning decisions. We are seeking individuals who are highly organised, proactive, and confident in taking ownership of their work. You will be comfortable working within established procedures and processes while using your initiative to achieve the best possible outcomes for residents. A positive and solution-focused approach is essential.

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
• Strong relationship-building abilities
• Experience of working with sensitive and confidential information
• The ability to work effectively in a fast-paced environment with competing priorities and tight deadlines
• Knowledge of specific client groups and an understanding of the care market
• Strong negotiation skills to secure appropriate services and ensure value for money
• Experience working in a customer-focused environment, with confidence in engaging with service users and their families or carers to support choice and control
We are looking for someone who is resourceful, approachable, and has a "can-do" attitude, with strong organisational and problem-solving skills and the ability to build effective working relationships with a wide range of stakeholders. Key Responsibilities:
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
• Strong relationship-building abilities
• Experience of working with sensitive and confidential information
• The ability to work effectively in a fast-paced environment with competing priorities and tight deadlines
• Knowledge of specific client groups and an understanding of the care market
• Strong negotiation skills to secure appropriate services and ensure value for money
• Experience working in a customer-focused environment, with confidence in engaging with service users and their families or carers to support choice and control, GCSE Equivalent (Maths & English), This role is subject to safer recruitment practices as it involves work with children and/ or vulnerable adults;
• Satisfactory DBS check;
• As a public authority, we must ensure that members of staff in public-facing roles are able to speak fluent English. This means that they must have a command of spoken English, with confidence and accuracy, sufficient for the effective performance of their role. This requirement does not refer to any particular English language qualifications, regional or international accents, dialects, speech impediments or the tone of conversations. It does not require staff to speak only in English.
  
  Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, the London Borough of Waltham Forest is a fantastic and exciting place to work.
We are a highly ambitious borough. Driven by culture and the innate creativity of our residents, we have developed new and innovative ways to build our communities. Our Council is relentlessly resident-focused, insight-led, digitally driven and commercially minded; a Council focused on meeting the needs of our existing and future residents. London Borough of Waltham Forest is one of the employers. This accreditation is a proof of our commitment to creating a healthy, fair and inclusive workplace. This includes fair pay and conditions, workplace well-being, skills and progression and diversity and recruitment., Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both, service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives: - Promoting equality of opportunity - Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage - Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels. - Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all. Respecting Diversity is a core Council value. To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy. We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below or feel free to discuss this during your interview.