Decision details

Following the departure of a 0.5 Grade 2 Business Support Officer and 0.5 Grade 3 Business Support Officer the OSCP Partnership Manager has reviewed the administrative capacity within the Unit.
It is proposed that the vacant Grade 2 post is deleted, and the resources used to create a full time Grade 3 position.
The reason for the creation of a full-time Grade 3 position is that the Business Support Officer needs to be appropriately skilled and experienced to support the statutory work of the Partnership including support in the production of performance reports.
There are sufficient funds within the Partnership Budget to meet the additional costs of the full-time role.
However, we are looking to slightly increase (approx. 4%) the income from the school SLAs for safeguarding training in line with the cost of living. This will generate at least £4000 extra in-year.

The OSCP Business Unit is heavily reliant on the Business Support function to ensure coordination and support is in place to ensure the Partnership functions effectively, including delivery of its Strategic Business Plan and fulfils its statutory duties in relation to Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews, Learning and Development function and Performance Monitoring.
The Unit requires an appropriately skilled and experienced Business Support Officer to provide this level of support.
Our specific requirements for the role are:
•Ability to coordinate and minute complex meetings and panels.
•Providing administrative support for task and finish groups
•Knowledge of safeguarding processes
•Strong communication and interpersonal skills
•Good organisational skills
•Adhering to strict statutory deadlines
•Securely managing confidential and sensitive information
•Financial processing of purchase orders and invoices

The alternative is to try to recruit a 0.5 G2 and 0.5 G3 which would cause more operational difficulties having post holders with different levels of responsibility and more difficulty covering the functional responsibilities of Oldham Safeguarding Children Partnership.
To fill a G2 0.5 and a G3 0.5 would take 2 recruitment processes, obviously this doubles the time requirements on the recruiting managers, doubles induction and training time all of which impacts service delivery.

Both posts are vacant. There is no implication for the staff who are in current posts.