Job Description

Commercial

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.

Property Services

This is an exciting opportunity for an ambitious commercial management professional to join the Commercial Property Services Portfolio, which is there to support the MoJ and its agencies in providing suitable, safe, secure and sustainable buildings incurring a spend over £250m per annum on outsourced Facilities Management (FM) contracts.

Individual contract spend can be over £50m per annum and include a wide range of complex and innovative contractual mechanisms following the NEC suite of contracts to deliver on a range of projects from major refurbishments and security services to sustainable delivery of catering services.

Role Summary

In this role you will be expected to own contract management activity for multiple contracts, ensuring the best outcomes is achieved across the commercial lifecycle. The role includes activity relating to mobilising/de-mobilising contracts, managing the delivery and performance of the contract, carrying out contract changes, managing risk within the contract and managing supplier relationships.

You will work independently and part of a larger team by drawing on your commercial experience to drive performance and achieve value engineering. 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

Typically, the key responsibilities in this role will include (but are not limited to):

• Managing one or more contracts, ensuring effective stakeholder management, governance, performance management frameworks, escalation, risk management, issues resolution, financial management, change control and compliance

• Ensuring the control and delivery of all spend through compliant contracts and publishing details via appropriate media

• Tracking, owning and mitigating risks relating to specific contracts

• Reviewing and understanding the terms and conditions of contracts and deliverables and working with the supplier to establish a plan for delivering them

• Agreeing and clarifying contract management responsibilities with stakeholders and advising them on setting up effective processes

• Developing opportunities to incentivise contract delivery, continuous performance improvement (where appropriate) and identifying where changes in the contract are required

• Overseeing measures and records realisation of benefits achieved as a result of the performance management regime (or change controls)

• Actively reconsidering market approach over time, including shifting balance of mixed market towards private sector provision and examining whether re-aggregation will yield scale efficiencies

• Leading all planning and preparation, goal setting, strategy and tactics for re-procurement and undertaking soft market testing

• Helping to drive innovation in contracts to demonstrate continuous improvement. Continually analysing contracts in order to develop and drive value adding initiatives

• Tracking operational demand and patterns on an ongoing basis and introducing demand management mechanisms where applicable

• Utilising financial management and benchmarking

• Undertaking proactive change controls, such as horizon scanning and evaluating the impact of supplier positioning, such as mergers

• Managing multiple, more complex requirements and contracts concurrently

• Managing assurance requirements and conducting peer reviews

• Negotiating with industry on key issues, such as contract terms, pricing, contract changes, Terms & Conditions and risk and reward

• Maintaining quality and concurrency of systems, reporting and management information

• 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, 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

Contract Management: Has experience in conducting contract management for one or more contracts. Has strong understanding of all aspects of contract management and how it fits in the commercial lifecycle

Commercial Focus: 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 the procurement or commercial management profession - CIPS, World CC or similar.

Application Stage

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

• CV

• Statement of Suitability (Up to 750 words). In the statement of suitability, please demonstrate your skills for the role and how you meet the key responsibilities and essential criteria as detailed in the job description.

Behaviours

• Communicating & Influencing (max 250 words)

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

• Leadership

• Delivering at Pace

Technical

• A technical question on the use of standard and non-standard form of contracts, such as NEC suite contracts.

Strengths will be 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