Ministry of Justice

The Ministry of Justice has one of the largest and most complex spending profiles in central government. Each year we spend more than £5 billion with our suppliers and it’s our job to help coordinate the sourcing of what we need. We support the management of our contracts across the department, its agencies and non departmental public bodies.   Commercial is responsible for coordinating procurement and contract management across the MoJ, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies. Commercial is organised into category teams, each with an interesting portfolio of contracts and diverse customers and suppliers to manage. We also have systems, programme management office, supplier relationship and risk management teams who work across all areas.  

Rehabilitation in Custody

Within the Rehabilitation in Custody division, we are focused on supporting the department to deliver better outcomes, reduce reoffending and deliver value for money. We have set a clear mission for the division - ‘To reduce re-offending through commercial leadership, collaboration and innovation’. This mission was developed through a joint session with the divisional teams and supports the overall Commercial vision. We are motivated to deliver positive social outcomes at a national scale whilst challenging established ways of working to drive commercial innovation.   We are seeking a Commercial Professional with the right personal qualities to join our team. We are looking for someone who is enthusiastic, energetic, proactive, collaborative, prepared to work as part of a team and under their own initiative and who is flexible and adaptable in a demanding environment.   Primarily responsible for supporting the CFO Evolution operational contract management team by providing them with robust commercial advice, alongside the preparation of contract change and variation documentation as and when required. You will also be given the opportunity to work across the wider Rehabilitation in Custody portfolio providing you with a broad spectrum of projects to work on at different stages of the Commercial lifecycle.   We are particularly interested in applications from candidates who have experience developing and feeding into category strategies as well as having hands on experience of being able to analyse the market and develop a suite of data that provides the category with strong supplier intelligence.   Key to the role is being able to build strong relationships with key stakeholders and the wider Ministry of Justice as well as being able to demonstrate strong evidence within your application related to the essential criteria of Commercial Focus.  

Role Summary

In this role you will contribute to delivering commercial excellence for the department, providing a customer-focused service, understanding the business need and stakeholder drivers, with the aim of becoming a trusted commercial advisor. You will also develop relationships with the department’s key and strategic suppliers, driving ‘value for money’ and risk management excellence across the category. You will lead and own elements of the overall commercial lifecycle, including strategy and policy development, understanding needs and sourcing options, contract and supplier management and the procurement process itself.   You will work both independently and part of a larger team by drawing on your commercial experience to drive performance and manage setbacks. You will be able to prioritise and manage your own workload to deliver to deadlines, mitigate and escalate any emerging risks and to respond swiftly to changing operational demands.  

Key Responsibilities

These roles are varied, and individual remit is subject to both size of category, and/or level of complexity, value and risk within a category. Typically, key responsibilities for a commercial professional in this role may include (but are not limited to):   Strategic delivery and management within a category:

• Understanding the department’s commercial strategy and feeding into the planning process based on commercial approaches that deliver requirements in line with business needs, category strategies and market trends
• Feeding into the development of category strategies and delivery of sourcing requirement within commercial, as part of the team supporting business as usual and project activities
• Understanding demand by forecasting and planning requirements with internal stakeholders and suppliers
• Developing and maintaining category plans for key spend areas

Understanding relevant sourcing options and analysis, delivering positive outcomes through the procurement process:

• Leading on end-to-end strategic sourcing activities for the department and serving as a subject matter expert
• Working with key stakeholders to develop a clear and agreed view of business requirements, and supporting business units in articulating their commercial requirements
• Advising and providing professional guidance throughout the sourcing process, considering and evaluating a range of sourcing models
• Leading development of commercial input into business cases, demonstrating a project's benefits, ‘value for money’ and risk
• Influencing and shaping future procurement policy and standards across the department
• Identifying opportunities to develop collaborative partnerships with suppliers
• Providing a procurement service to the department which delivers demonstrable ‘value for money’ and compliant goods and services contracts as part of a team of procurement professionals on larger procurement activities, including driving productivity opportunities with existing supply base to deliver further savings
• Negotiating with third parties where necessary, using knowledge and experience relating to commercial negotiation techniques
• Understanding and being accountable for sourcing compliance and frameworks

Ensuring effective Commercial Contract and Supplier Management within the category:

• Evaluating the performance of suppliers against the specification and reporting regularly
• Actively contributing to the management of the supply chain portfolio, including the development and implementation of supply chain and supplier relationship strategies
• Acting as commercial lead, managing one or more medium to high complexity contracts, ensuring effective stakeholder management, governance, performance management frameworks, escalation, risk management, issues resolution, financial management, change control and compliance
• Developing and maintaining positive commercial relationships with the supply chain to maintain and enhance performance, improve service delivery and create additional value
• On an ongoing basis, tracking operation demand and patterns, introducing demand management mechanisms where applicable
• Analysing and assessing supplier risk, understanding impact on contingency and business continuity, driving ‘value for money’ whilst protecting the department’s risk position
• Tracking and owning risks relating to specific contracts, taking steps to mitigate commercial risks

Building and maintaining key relationships across the department and with important external stakeholders:

• Developing effective working relationships with supplier organisations to establish appropriate governance and relationship arrangements, ensuring the effective management of clarifications and change requests
• Provision of commercial advice to stakeholders on all aspects of commercial
• Engaging, where required, with the relevant senior business lead, ensuring that business requirements are supported by category strategies

 Enabling and developing the department:

• Championing procurement best practice and working collaboratively with others to create a proactive and intelligent function
• Contributing to the maintenance and updating of systems throughout the procurement lifecycle
• Managing catalogues and commercial content, and may be responsible for owning key aspects of this
• Working with key stakeholders to promote the use of catalogues
• Playing a role in building capability of new starters and those on development programmes
  In addition:
• Mentoring and providing guidance to junior members of the team
• Working within a secure environment on sensitive projects as required
• Some of the roles may involve line management

As part of your own personal career development in the Commercial team, after a period of time there could be opportunities to move roles at the same grade. In some circumstances, we may need to move you on to business-critical priorities at the same grade to meet business need.  

Essential Criteria

Commercial Focus: Has good experience within a procurement, commercial or buying role. Has a good understanding of the principles of end-to-end commercial lifecycle management, and sourcing and procurement methodologies. Evidence of leading and securing ‘value for money’ in a commercial environment. Has strong commercial knowledge, understands commercial law and can use key commercial tools appropriately   Risk and Assurance Management: Demonstrates the ability to manage cyber, personnel and physical risks within an area of responsibility   Commercial Ethics: Demonstrates the ability to apply standards to eliminate corruption, fraud and unethical behaviour in supply chains, taking appropriate actions in the event of any alleged breach of standards   Team Focus: Demonstrates the ability to work as part of a team to support their performance, manage setbacks and resolve issues internally   Build Relationships: Demonstrates the ability to communicate with stakeholders at all levels using different communication styles to articulate the benefits that have been achieved and to establish governance and relationship arrangements  

Desirable Criteria

• Working knowledge of systems, e.g. Oracle and/or Jaggaer (Bravo),
• Awareness and understanding of public sector commercial principles and legislation

• Awareness of public sector commercial legislation including EU Rules and UK interpretations.

• Candidates must have one of the following or a willingness to work towards gaining the appropriate qualification in commercial management profession - CIPS, WCC or similar.
• Relevant degree
• Relevant industry experience

Application Stage

  An initial sift will be performed against the following elements and will be assessed against the Civil Service success profiles framework:  

Experience

• CV
• Statement of Suitability (between 500 - 750 words): alongside demonstrating your experience related to the key responsibilities and essential/desirable criteria, please ensure you address the areas highlighted in relation to your commercial experience.

Behaviours

We will assess your application on the following behaviours (max 250 words). Please use the STAR method in your examples.

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Working Together
• Communicating and Influencing

  If shortlisted, you will be invited to an interview and will be assessed on the selected success profile elements at the interview stage.  

Interview stage

  There is one interview stage for this vacancy which will be held remotely and as part of the interview process you will be required to provide evidence on the following, and will be assessed against the Civil Service success profiles framework:  

Behaviours

• Communicating and Influencing
• Changing and Improving
• Making Effective Decisions
• Managing a Quality Service

Your experience and technical skills for this role shall be assessed at both the sift stage (CV, Statement of suitability) and the interview stage (Interview), according to the essential and desirable criteria outlined in the job description.   Please refer to the People Standards for the profession (Associate Commercial Lead) – Attributes for Government Commercial Professionals – Section A: Judgement and Leadership - People Standards for the Profession.   Strengths maybe assessed at the interview, and these are not shared in advance.   To learn more about the Civil Service success profiles framework and how they are assessed please click here.   Please use STAR approach to structure your examples for both the application and interview for behaviours. Using the STAR method can help you give examples of relevant experience that you have. It allows you to set the scene, show what you did, and how you did it, and explain the overall outcome.  

Situation: Describe the situation you found yourself in. You must describe a specific event or situation. Be sure to give enough detail for the job holder to understand.

• Where are you?
• Who was there with you?
• What had happened?

Task: The job holder will want to understand what you tried to achieve from the situation you found yourself in.

• What was the task that you had to complete and why?
• What did you have to achieve?

Actions: What did you do? The job holder will be looking for information on what you did, how you did it and why. Keep the focus on you. What specific steps did you take and what was your contribution? Remember to include how you did it, and the behaviours you used. Try to use “I” rather than “we” to explain your actions that lead to the result. Be careful not to take credit for something that you did not do.

Results: Don’t be shy about taking credit for your behaviour. Quote specific facts and figures. Explain how the outcome benefitted the organisation or your area. Make the outcomes easily understandable.

• What results did the actions produce?
• What did you achieve through your actions and did you meet your goals?
• Was it a successful outcome? If not, what did you learn from the experience?

Keep the situation and task parts brief. Concentrate on the action and the result. If the result was not entirely successful describe what you learned from this and what you would do differently next time. Make sure you focus on your strengths.  

Commercial Roles

New entrants are expected to join on the pay minimum. Higher starting salary and / or Recruitment & Retention Allowance may be available for successful candidates with exceptional skills and experience. We will consider applications from non-qualified candidates, who are willing to develop and work towards a recognised qualification in order to meet the full requirements of the role.   The specialist allowance may apply to fully qualified applicants with a commercial professional qualification, for example CIPS, World CC, etc.   Further details can be provided during the recruitment process