Associate Director - Strategic Commissioning, Partnerships, Improvement & Innovation

Job: Associate Director – Strategic Commissioning, Partnerships, Improvement and Innovation

Salary: £ – £

Location: Dudley, West Midlands – hybrid

Contract: Permanent, full time

We are now seeking an exceptional, forward-thinking leader to join us as Associate Director – Strategic Commissioning, Partnerships, Improvement and Innovation. This is a rare opportunity to play a pivotal role in a whole system transformation across Adult Social Care and wider organisational change.

This is a high impact strategic leadership role at the heart of Adult Social Care. You will drive innovation, transformation, commissioning excellence, and continuous improvement, ensuring services are sustainable, person centred, rooted in prevention, using community assets and aligning investment with long-term, high-quality outcomes.

Working across the Council, NHS, voluntary sector, and provider market, you build in good existing partnerships and bring strategic oversight to commissioning, quality assurance, performance, financial governance, and service development.

You will:

• Lead the development and delivery of a strategic commissioning framework for Adult Social Care.
• Champion co‑production and ensure the voice of people with lived experience shapes commissioning and improvement.
• Strengthen market resilience, provider quality and value for money.
• Oversee brokerage, adult social care finance, direct payments, ISFs, welfare services and charging.
• Embed a culture of continuous improvement, innovation and high performance across multidisciplinary teams.
• Maintain robust assurance, governance, and accountability frameworks including s75 arrangements and pooled budgets.
• Support delivery of the Council’s new operating model, corporate priorities and transformation programme.
• Provide visible, values‑led leadership that fosters inclusion, collaboration, ambition and excellence.
• Act as a key member of the Senior Management Team and deputise for the Director of Adult Social Care when required.

You will be an inspirational senior leader with extensive knowledge of social care legislation, NHS policy, and commissioning frameworks. Able to demonstrate in‑depth Adult Social Care commissioning expertise, a strong record of large‑scale transformation, solid regulatory knowledge, proven leadership in complex settings, excellent partnership and political skills, unwavering ethical commitment, and the vision, resilience and passion to deliver high‑quality, outcomes‑focused, person‑centred, sustainable services.

You’ll be joining at a transformative moment as part of a leadership team reshaping how we work, how we serve our communities, and how we collaborate with partners, with the opportunity to take on a highly influential strategic leadership role, drive systemwide change in Adult Social Care, and contribute to a culture rooted in innovation, improvement and inclusion, all supported by strong corporate ambition and a comprehensive Council‑wide improvement programme.

If you’re a visionary, resilient, and collaborative leader excited by the opportunity to shape the future of Adult Social Care in Dudley, we’d love to hear from you.

For an informal discussion please contact Emma Matthews, Director of Adult Social Care, via

For more information and to apply, please visit

Applications close:
Sunday 8 March 2026.

Please submit your CV and supporting statement to your application. Your supporting statement should be in arial, 12 font and no more than 4 pages.

The recruitment process will be to undertake technical interviews with long-listed applicants to confirm the shortlist. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to assessment centres and attend final interviews. Please indicate any periods you are unavailable.

Workplace Attendance:
Working in the office 3+ days a week (pro-rata) or Onsite full time

We are committed to diversity and inclusion and to improve bias in the recruitment process that could create barriers for candidates. Your personal data will be anonymised when you apply; to comply with our anonymisation process, please ensure you have…