Are you passionate about education? We are seeking an enthusiastic and motivated person to lead on our apprenticeship offer as we continue to 'grow our own'. We believe in maximising potential and supporting all to be the best they can be. If you are kind, fair, have a flair for seeking innovative solutions to challenges and are determined to succeed this could be the role for you.
You will work closely with various stakeholders, both internal and external, to develop systems for the quality assurance of key performance standards and indicators for the apprenticeship standards we offer, ensuring these align to the standards and requirements of our stakeholders.
Educated to degree level or equivalent with advanced computer skills, you will ideally have significant experience of working in education and in supporting apprentices. You will need to demonstrate leadership, good report writing and presentation skills and be confident in financial and budgetary management.
The main duties of the role are:
• Work alongside relevant stakeholders including; HR business partners, finance, business planning, customers, Learning Associates, regulatory bodies, training providers including universities, in the business planning process to identify, diagnose and plan to address future workforce needs through a clear strategic framework and pragmatic, tailored support to services to enable performance improvement and skills development
• Contribute to the Trust’s Learning and development action plan, to improve overall organisational performance and effectiveness through new role and apprentice development and re-skilling or up-skilling staff where appropriate
• Manage and prioritise own portfolio of work, consisting of apprentice development, future role development for both clinical and non-clinical staff and project-based responsibilities to meet required deadlines and objectives
• Working with the Organisation Development team, identify clinical leadership apprenticeship development programmes to increase capability across the organisation
• Manage the apprenticeship team
• Manage the apprenticeship budget
• Manage the centralised ‘ grow our own’ budget
• To deputise for the Head of Education and Workforce Development when
required
We are proud to provide high quality mental health and learning disability services, both inpatient and in the community across five boroughs of Greater Manchester - Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport and Tameside and Glossop.
Our vision is for a happier and more hopeful life for everyone in our communities and our staff work hard to deliver the very best care for the people who use our services. We’re really proud of our #PennineCarePeople and do everything we can to make sure we’re a great place to work.
All individuals regardless of race, age, disability, ethnicity, nationality, gender, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, religion or belief, marriage and civil partnership are encouraged to apply for this post. We would also encourage applications from individuals with a lived experience of mental illness, either individually or as a carer.
If you come and work for us we will offer a range of benefits and opportunities, including:
• Generous annual leave entitlement for Agenda for Change and Medical and Dental staff.
• Flexible working opportunities to support your work/life balance
• Access to Continued Professional Development
• Involvement in improvement and research activities
• Health and Wellbeing activities and access to an excellent staff wellbeing service
• Access to staff discounts across retail, leisure and travel
Apprenticeships and programmes for new roles
• Leads and supports the effective delivery and implementation of the Trust apprenticeship strategy, reporting on activity and achievements to the people and workforce steering group
• Effective interpretation and translation of national apprenticeship policies and initiatives into effective local action, by supporting the development of long term strategies and action plans across the Trust, by planning and delivering apprentice cohorts to support necessary organisational and service developments and enhancing the skills of staff
• Provide expert advice to managers and staff about the availability and content of suitable formal programmes to support skills and knowledge development for staff in new and existing roles.
• Provide expert advice about the requirements of the training programmes including academic work, work place experience and assessment activity.
• Provides support, advice and guidance for managers, learning associates and teams to identify roles that are suitable for apprenticeship programmes and develop processes to support managers to advertise new posts as apprenticeship opportunities.
• Support managers to commission apprenticeship programmes and ensure that the provision is value for money, quality and meets learning outcomes.
• Manage the apprenticeship levy budget ensuring that effective use is made of the Trust levy and maintaining compliance with apprentice funding rules
• Maintain spreadsheets to accurately forecast both apprenticeship levy payments, spend and clawback.
• Ensure contracts are negotiated and in place with all apprenticeship providers and that regular reviews are held to ensure contractual commitments are met.
• Communicates service-related information to senior managers, staff, and external agencies using effective influencing and negotiation skills
• Undertake strategic workforce planning in liaison with safer staffing lead and finance to maximise use of centralised ‘grow our own’ budget to support filling hard to fill vacancies.
• Work across partners to enable the apprenticeship levy to be utilised or reallocated within the GM system.
• Maintain apprenticeship activity on the Digital Apprenticeship System (DAS), meeting external reporting requirements.
• Provide up to date advice and guidance about policy changes in relation to the national apprenticeship system and impact on local policy and strategy for apprentices.
• Lead on or contribute to trailblazers for new apprentice standards
• Works collaboratively with partner organisations including:- other NHS Trusts, Local Authorities, NHS Commissioning organisations, NHS England, Salsbury Apprentice Framework, relevant organisations in the Integrated Care System, private sector organisations and community based and/or voluntary organisations in order to develop a consolidated and shared approach
• Work collaboratively with external learning and development providers including Higher Education Institutes (HEIs), colleges, external trainers etc to commission input, develop apprentice and widening participation solutions then review and evaluate learning provision
• Increase numbers of apprentices starting on all programmes, particularly those hard to recruit roles that fall under strategic workforce or NHS England goals
• Create processes and governance structures that will ensure proper management of the apprenticeship provision and will create a lasting programme for the Trust
• Manage the process for recruiting, placing and supporting Trust wide apprenticeship programmes such as Student Nursing Associates.
Functional Skills programmes
• Provide advice and guidance to the Trust about the options for developing and delivering functional skills training to support the Trust to meet future health care staffing needs.
• Monitor uptake, progress and completion of functional skills programmes
• Ensure a range of functional skills programmes available to staff across the Trust footprint
• Support the Health and wellbeing college and patient engagement lead to identify pathways into employment for people with lived experience in Pennine Care.
Design, deliver and Evaluate learning and development programmes
• Designs, delivers and evaluates learning and development activity, tailoring content and delivery style to the needs of the audience, using face to face and virtual technology and methods.
• Provide expert facilitation skills to improve individual and team skills and competencies and to enable people in the organisation to deliver the organisation’s objectives
• Develop and design competency and knowledge assessment tools where appropriate to ensure that learning outcomes are measured and there are robust processes for embedding learning into practice
• Works with the workforce and OD team and/or other providers on required development outcomes, evaluation methods and measures.
• Ensures that commissioned L&D provision provides value for money, quality and that agreed learning outcomes are met
• Plans, designs and undertakes structured processes of organisational wide L&D audit and evaluation, to provide evidence and feedback of L&D effectiveness and return on investment to report to the People and Workforce Steering Group and Committee
• Designs, delivers and evaluates apprentice activity and demonstrates return on investment from development activities to the organisation
Manage the apprenticeship team and service delivery
• Manages the Apprenticeship team and works with the Education and Workforce development team to deliver the services required.
• Manage the Student Nurse Associate (SNA) Facilitators ensuring the
SNA cohorts are successfully placed, meet their learning requirements and are integrated into service provision.
• Ensure that apprenticeship programmes are relevant, delivered effectively and are monitored to ensure that learners are safe, skilled and supported in their new roles.
• Leads and supports the effective delivery and implementation of allocated Learning and Development initiatives through multi-functional teams and ensures stakeholder input and reporting is included
• Supports other staff delivering training across the organisation by providing expert advice and support in the identification of learning needs, development of interventions, delivery methods and evaluation best practice
• Regularly undertakes research and development in relation to Education &Development including horizon scanning of upcoming good practice, benchmarking with other organisations/industries to add value to our internal L&D services, triangulation of data to provide meaningful analysis of organisational issues and regularly maintains own continuous professional development
• Ensure that learning and development programmes are advertised and promoted to staff and that record keeping is maintained.
• Ensure that the requirements for monitoring and usage of funding allocated to apprenticeships by NHS England are managed and reported on uploading requirements into external and internal systems.
• Works collaboratively and supportively with the network of internal Learning and Development associates, co-working on projects and interventions in a partnership way. This may include co-facilitation of learning and development interventions with team members within the Workforce and OD team and others from the wider organisation
• Arrange events to celebrate and promote the achievements of learners.
• Develop, implement and review as appropriate apprenticeship and functional skills training policies
• Monitor and maintain audit trail of student issues and complaints and support development of actions plans to address issues.
• Work in partnership with HR colleagues to ensure contracts of employment are appropriate for apprentices
This advert closes on Wednesday 19 Mar 2025