Quality, Improvement and Innovation Executive

We need to know whether participants are receiving the right support, whether our Relational Mentoring approach is being delivered consistently, whether employment opportunities are right for people and what we need to learn and change as delivery develops.

We are looking for a Quality Improvement & Innovation colleague who will work alongside operational teams to create consistently strong delivery while continually improving how Jobs Guarantee works.

This isn't a compliance role sitting at the edge of delivery and checking what happened afterwards.

You'll be part of delivery.

You'll spend time understanding participant journeys, talking to colleagues, reviewing practice, analysing information and identifying what is working well and where something could be better.

You'll help turn quality assurance into quality improvement.

A core part of the role will also be helping us turn delivery into learning, learning into evidence and evidence into opportunity.

You'll bring together performance data, participant experience, frontline intelligence, employer feedback and insight from place.

You'll help us understand not simply what happened, but what changed because of our work and what that tells us about what we should do next.

What you'll do

1. Build quality into everyday delivery

Work alongside Operations Managers, Team Leads, Mentors, Employment Pathways and wider colleagues to make quality part of normal practice.

Help colleagues understand what good looks like.

Develop clear and proportionate quality-assurance approaches that provide confidence without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.

Use case reviews, observations, data, feedback and conversations to understand quality.

Identify issues early and work with operational colleagues to improve them.

Create an environment where teams' own quality rather than experience it as something done to them.

2. Strengthen Relational Mentoring practice

Help bring our Relational Mentoring approach to life consistently across Jobs Guarantee.

Look beyond whether an interaction happened and understand the quality and purpose of the relationship.

Help colleagues reflect on whether:

we understand the whole person;

support is genuinely personalised;

the relationship is purposeful and creating progress;

colleagues are supporting and appropriately challenging;

participants retain agency over their journey;

the right wider support is being brought around them.

Create opportunities for reflective practice and shared learning.

Identify strong practice and help make it repeatable.

3. Understand participant experience

Keep participant voice at the centre of improvement.

Create meaningful ways for young people to tell us about their experience before, during and after employment.

Go beyond satisfaction.

Understand what helped, what got in the way and what participants believe could have been different.

Use individual experiences to identify wider patterns.

Make sure participant feedback results in action.

4. Connect data, stories and place

Work with performance information alongside qualitative insight.

Understand where participant journeys are slowing and why.

Look for patterns across engagement, matching, job starts, sustainment, progression, employer experience and quality.

Analyse information by locality as well as across the whole programme.

Ask what participant experience and performance are telling us about the place, not just the contract.

Bring together robust data and human evidence so we can tell a credible story of impact.

Help teams move beyond asking, "Did we hit the number?" towards understanding, "What is the number telling us and what do we do next?"

5. Drive continuous improvement

Identify opportunities to improve processes, practice and participant experience.

Use structured improvement approaches where useful, while keeping them practical.

Test changes, understand their impact and help teams embed what works.

Follow improvement actions through rather than simply making recommendations.

Where the same issue repeatedly appears, look for the underlying cause.

Help simplify processes that create unnecessary complexity for participants, colleagues, employers or partners.

6. Support innovation

Create space for colleagues to test ideas and new approaches.

Bring together frontline experience, participant voice, employer feedback, data and wider learning.

Explore where different approaches, technology or partnership working could improve outcomes or efficiency.

Don't innovate for innovation's sake.

Focus on solving real problems or creating better outcomes.

7. Support quality, evidence and assurance

Work with Administration, Finance and operational colleagues to ensure case records, performance evidence and processes meet programme requirements.

Identify areas where poor process or recording could create operational, financial or audit risk.

Support audit and assurance activity.

Make sure learning from assurance is translated into changed practice.

Work particularly closely with Administration and Finance where recurring evidence or reconciliation issues suggest a wider process problem.