
Role Title	Contract Support Officer

Job family group	Operational Delivery	Job family/ies	Service Delivery, Service Support	Grade	EO	Status	For internal use

Role Purpose (250 words max)	The Contract Support Officer will provide support to the Contracted Services team in the day-to-day operational management of a number of high profile contracts across the Contracted Service Divisions wider portfolio to ensure efficient and effective delivery of services that ensure excellence, and value for money. This role will support Contract Managers by providing first level specialist input to the Contracted Services division, investigating, analysing and monitoring contracted services performance and contributing to the achievement of the team’s objectives.

Key Accountabilities (600 words max)
Provide business support services across all contracts, assisting with effective communications to operational teams, other directorates and commissioning bodies. Investigate and respond to complaints, ensuring root causes are identified and addressed. Escalating to the Contract Manager when required. Complete checks to ensure contractual compliance, liaising with the contractor/supplier and court teams to ensure that procedures have been completed accurately or to identify areas of service failure. Assist with Freedom of Information requests, investigating specific issues obtain further information to resolve issues and queries. Support the team in identifying, assessing and prioritising improvement opportunities to contracted services. The role may also require supporting the HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) court custody inspection process. Support the team to identify and investigate operational issues either encountered or raised by Courts and Tribunals teams, Regional Support Units, the Judiciary, Ministers, OGDs and HMCTS senior managers, collecting, organising and analysing information and preparing reports for more senior staff. Work in partnership with HMCTS operational teams and Directorates to identify and report on operational issues, risks and opportunities in the delivery of contracted services, assessing the potential impact on HMCTS operations. Build engagement between Courts and Tribunals, suppliers and stakeholders by providing support to arrange and facilitate meetings, workshops, problem solves, and road shows. Support MoJ Commercial and Contract Management Directorate (CCMD) Sourcing and Project Teams in the re-procurement and effective transition and mobilisations of new contracts. Responsibility for the Contracted Services intranet pages, ensuring they are kept up to date, making improvements where required. Daily team inbox management, dealing with queries, prioritising requests and emails and distributing or escalating as appropriate. Ensuring that all communications to operational staff, stakeholders and suppliers are clear and concise. Provide secretariat duties for meetings including arranging meeting rooms, liaising with suppliers and other stakeholders to confirm arrangements, sending out agendas, taking minutes, recording and sending out actions and collating responses. Apply Continuous Improvement principles, tools and techniques to working practices to improve efficiency of contracted services. Collate information requests for the Director or the Directorate teams on an ad-hoc basis. Provide general support to, and represent with delegated authority, the Contract Manager as required. Work in a flexible way and undertake any other duties reasonably requested by line management which are commensurate with the grade and level of responsibility of this post.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience (500 words max)
Essential excellent communications skills and the ability to remain calm and resilient under pressure are also essential. be organised, assertive and confident with the ability to prioritise a busy workload. Excellent organisational and time management skills. Good spoken and written communication skills. A collaborative approach and the ability to build networks and alliances. Strong stakeholder management skills, with ability to work confidently with senior officials. Track record of delivering at pace and under pressure. Desirable Knowledge of the day-to-day running of operations and/or contract management is highly beneficial, however is not essential.

Problem Solving and Decision Making (300 words max)
In dealing with complaints and in investigating issues with contracted services the role holder will need to investigate the issues involved, gathering and analysing information to understand the problem and choosing the most appropriate solution within the guidelines and protocols laid out for contracted services. The role holder will also be expected to understand which issues require resolution at a higher level and provide more senior managers with information to help them make informed decisions. In inbox management and in drafting communications and reports the role holder will be expected to make decisions on determining priorities and the level and amount of information to include.

Management of Resources (250 words max)
This role has no direct line management responsibility. In taking forward their own work, they will focus on the timing and sequencing of activities and in managing inboxes will take action to ensure more senior managers’ time is spent on the most appropriate activities.

Autonomy (250 words max)
The Contract Support Officer will be expected to work unsupervised and adjust their priorities in supporting Contract Managers and the wider Contracted Services Division. They will have some scope to determine the best approach to take in investigating issues with the provision of contracted services and will be able, and expected, to make decisions using their own judgment on what issues to escalate to the Contract Manager or more senior managers. Generally, contract management standards, guidelines and protocols will guide the Contract Support Officer’s actions

Key Relationships and Contacts (300 words max)
Internal The Contract Support Officer will engage with other parts of the business to ensure efficient and effective delivery of services that ensure excellence, and value for money in the various contracted services They will be required to build engagement between Courts and Tribunals, suppliers and stakeholders and provide support by arranging and facilitating meetings, workshops, problem solves, and road shows External The role is responsible for daily team inbox management, dealing with queries, prioritising requests and emails and distributing or escalating as appropriate. They will need to ensure that all communications to operational staff, stakeholders and suppliers are clear and concise and will gather and share information to make this happen The role will assist with Freedom of Information requests from outside the organisation and will communicate both internally and externally to obtain further information to resolve issues and queries and investigate and provide information on specific issues To resolve complaints the role will need to communicate with various groups to obtain information and resolve queries, and will also analyse trends and provide information and insight to Contract Managers and senior managers to help them make informed decisions on the correct action to take.