As Operations Manager I am responsible for a cluster of sectors, each of which are individually managed by a Sector Manager. My key responsibilities are to produce and implement operational work plans and budgets, recruit and manage staff and resource's to achieve required service responses, quality and cost performance indicators and monitor the effectiveness of the teams against SLA/KPI's, driving through change as needed to deliver continual service improvements.

This was a new role to the College after a substantial restructure. This brought together the business development and workforce delivery teams which included apprenticeships, traineeships and the relevant functional skills team. The team included a deputy manager, lecturers, trainer assessors and business support staff. My main duties and responsibilities were managing, and motivating this large team to deliver positive outcomes, identifying demand, plan for peaks and troughs in apprenticeship starts, monitoring trainer/assessor and lecturers caseloads, developing and implementing a quality framework across the whole workforce delivery programs, (to include the graded observations for lecturers and trainer assessors) which clearly outlined the processes, and procedures, of the apprenticeship journey.

As the Director of Business Development and Funding my main responsibilities were to lead the cross college Apprenticeship provision, an Ofsted Grade one Trade Union Education department and other funding streams, which included the Skills for Growth consortium contract and full cost provision. One of my key focuses was to raise the apprenticeship provision from the Ofsted grade “requires improvement”. I revised and implemented a structured learner journey which identified the accountability for the ownership of apprenticeships, spanning from the trainer/assessors to the administration team, and then to management. The impact of this approach raised the performance in 2016/17 by 10% putting the apprenticeship provision above the national rate.

As Director of the ESF Project – Skills Support for the Workforce, I lead the implementation, performance management and quality procedures of a consortium approach contract. This contract consisted of 14 sub-contractors, which included the 7 Liverpool City Region Further Education Colleges and some key training providers. The outcome of this programme was exceptional and we achieved a total spend of £6,400,000, in an 18 month period, and had clean audits from both internal, and external sources.

During my role as College Manager for Employment & Skills I implemented, developed and delivered training programmes to the unemployed and people under notice of redundancy. Developing strategic partnerships with stakeholders such as; Jobcentre Plus, Wirral Borough Council (Economic Policy Office), National Careers Service, local Employers and the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) to maximise the delivery of the training programmes. This was an outstanding department within the College and achieved both financial and performance targets year on year.

Responsible for the implementation, co-ordination and consistency of the Internal Verification/Moderation process across the college. My duties include liaising with awarding bodies on generic issues, leading cross-college internal verification activities, (including the dissemination of good practice) advising staff on training and development issues and delivering this as and when required. I was an active member of the Quality Standards Training Committee and a regular attendee of the Quality Managers Forum.

Responsible for the induction of employees, ITP completion, initial assessment, identifying barriers to employment, action planning and developing a structured package for each individual, (including delivering jobsearch). I was the Principal IV for Customer Service organising meetings and supporting assessors and other IV’s and coordinating EV visits. I was also responsible for Certification and registration of qualifications, booking all off the job training programmes and designing, implementing and monitoring the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) activities of all assessors, and Internal Verifiers, and contributing to the organizational CPD programme.