SEND Operations and Best Value Manager

The Service and Team

The SEND Provision and Experience Manager plays a pivotal role in assuring and improving the quality, effectiveness and value for money of SEND education provision across the local area. Leading a specialist team, the postholder brings together data, lived experience and professional insight to understand how provision is experienced by children, young people and families, and to drive system wide improvement. Working closely with education, health and commissioning partners, the role provides confident professional challenge, strengthens safeguarding and statutory compliance, and ensures that high cost and complex provision delivers positive outcomes. This is a role for a thoughtful, values driven leader who combines analytical rigour with empathy, influence and a strong commitment to inclusive practice.

The Role

Are you driven by a deep belief that every child and young person with SEND deserves not just provision, but the right provision delivered well, experienced positively and making a real difference? This is a rare opportunity to step into a pivotal system leadership role where insight, empathy and professional challenge come together. As SEND Provision and Experience Manager, you will sit at the heart of the local area SEND partnership, shaping how quality, value for money and lived experience are understood, measured and improved across education, health and care. You will lead intelligence led assurance work that listens carefully to children, young people and families, and translates what they tell us; through data, feedback, complaints and outcomes and meaningful system wide improvements.

This role is as much about how you lead as what you do. You will be a thoughtful, credible leader who can bring people with you; influencing providers, commissioners and partners through evidence, relationships and shared purpose. Leading a skilled team, you will oversee monitoring activity across mainstream, specialist, alternative provision, ensuring safeguarding, statutory duties and inclusion are embedded throughout. You will be trusted to provide assurance to senior leaders and elected members, to challenge where standards fall short, and to champion good practice wherever it is found. This is a role for someone who is comfortable holding complexity, balancing compassion with accountability, and using professional judgement to protect both outcomes for children and the public purse.

If you bring strong SEND expertise, a background in education, a sharp analytical mind and the emotional intelligence to navigate complex systems with confidence and care, this role offers the chance to make a lasting difference; not just to services, but to experiences and lives.

This position will be subject to an enhanced criminal record disclosure check.

What You'll Need to Succeed

If you bring strong SEND expertise, a background in education, a sharp analytical mind and the emotional intelligence to navigate complex systems with confidence and care, this role offers the chance to make a lasting difference; not just to services, but to experiences and lives.

Working Pattern:

This is a full time, 37 hours per week position.

What you'll get in return:

Cornwall Council's ambition is to be an employer of choice, a high performing Council and a learning organisation. We commit to providing a reward and benefits package to attract, motivate and reward our employees. We offer a range of flexible working options to our staff. This helps provide our employees with a greater work/life balance whilst still ensuring that service needs are met.

Our core employee rewards and benefits include:

• A competitive salary


• A defined benefit pension scheme, based on your career average earnings. This includes the option for extra voluntary contributions


• A generous annual leave entitlement with the potential to purchase additional leave.


• A national award-winning employee health and wellbeing programme


• Employee benefits scheme giving employees access to a wide range of discounts to local and national goods and services.

Additional Information:

Cornwall Council is unable to offer visa sponsorship or transfer existing sponsorship for this role.

The full role profile is attached here

We recommend saving a copy of this to refer to if you are invited to an interview.

For more information or an informal chat about the role please contact Nick Millward -

Application Process

Please attach a supporting statement to your application. You can add your Education & Qualifications details manually using the application form timeline or you can upload your CV. Remember to demonstrate why you are suitable against each of the points marked as 'Application' on the Role Profile using examples from your experience or transferable skills. This might be through qualifications or descriptive examples from your work / personal experience, which clearly illustrates what you did and the effect it had. Guidance on how to complete your application can be found here - The application process.

Please note that applications cannot be edited after they have been submitted, please contact if you have any queries or require assistance with your application.

Existing employees must apply using their Cornwall Council email address through the Opportunity Marketplace on Oracle.