Head of Residential Placements

Location: Birmingham, with some travel

Reports to: Managing Director, Residential

Direct Reports: Residential Placement Officers

As Compass Community enters the next phase of ambitious growth and national influence, the Head of Residential Placements plays a pivotal role in maximising placement outcomes in our children’s homes, strengthening commercial relationships and ensuring Compass is the partner of choice for local authorities.

This role leads a high-performing, commercially astute placements function that combines child-centred decision-making with disciplined execution, data-led insight and strong market engagement. The postholder will ensure that referrals are managed efficiently and strategically, that placement matching is robust and timely, and that Compass’s full therapeutic and educational offer is understood and promoted effectively.

Working in close partnership with the Commercial Team, Finance and Residential operational leaders, the Head of Residential Placements will embed CRM capability, performance dashboards and market intelligence to drive sustainable growth, high utilisation and exceptional stakeholder experience – always aligned to Compass’s values and safeguarding standards.

• Lead the development and execution of our placements’ strategy, ensuring alignment with Compass’s Value Creation Plan and growth ambitions.
• Drive placement growth, occupancy and service utilisation across Compass children’s homes.
• Work in close partnership with operations and the Commercial Team to strengthen commissioner relationships, improve win rates and secure long-term partnership arrangements.
• Ensure a proactive approach to relationship management with local authorities, building trusted, solution-focused partnerships.
• Embed commercial discipline in referral handling, financial package negotiations and service positioning.
• Identify market trends, commissioner priorities and competitor activity, translating insight into clear commercial actions.

• Lead the implementation and optimisation of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to ensure structured referral tracking, pipeline visibility and performance reporting.
• Embed CRM usage as standard practice across the placement team, ensuring data integrity, compliance and consistency.
• Develop clear dashboards and reporting mechanisms to monitor referral conversion, response times, utilisation, pipeline forecasting and commissioner engagement.
• Use data and analytics to inform strategic decisions, improve conversion rates and identify growth opportunities.
• Work cross-functionally with IT, Finance and Commercial colleagues to ensure seamless system integration and data accuracy.

• Ensure efficient and high-quality management of all referrals from initial enquiry through to placement confirmation.
• Oversee inbox management, allocation processes and workload balancing to maintain responsiveness and service standards.
• Monitor and improve KPIs including response times, conversion rates, placement stability, utilisation and margin performance.
• Provide regular performance reporting and analysis to senior leadership, identifying risks and improvement opportunities.
• Strengthen matching processes to ensure every placement decision aligns with children’s care plans, therapeutic needs and long-term stability.
• Support regional services to maximise internal step-up/step-down pathways across fostering, residential, education and community services.

• Build and maintain strong working relationships with operations and the Sr. Head of Business Development to ensure smooth referral transitions and placement start-ups.
• Act as a senior ambassador for Compass in external meetings, commissioner reviews and partnership forums.
• Coordinate commercial timelines in partnership with Registered Managers and Commercial colleagues.
• Support services in preparation for Ofsted inspections where placement performance data or commissioner relationships are relevant.
• Promote Compass’s full-service offer, ensuring commissioners…