Senior Category Lead (G6) – Associate Commercial Specialist
Government Commercial Function
Apply before 11:55 pm on Sunday 3rd November 2024
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About the job
Job summary
Welcome and thank you for considering joining us at the Department for Education.
We currently have openings for a Commercial Specialist in the Department for Education (DfE) across various commercial projects and locations and if you are an experienced professional in procurement and want to make a real difference, you should consider joining the DfE Commercial Team.
We are looking for people who are passionate about working with policy and operational teams to deliver commercial solutions that lead the way across government. The DfE spends £23bn on some of the most-high profile and rewarding government priorities across the educational sector.
In recent years, the DfE has delivered many varied and high-profile procurements including:
- HGV bootcamp – working closely with policy teams to develop the business requirements to upskill individuals in response to the national shortage of HGV drivers
- Re-procurement of the critical Teachers Pension Scheme administration
- Ventilation in Schools – working to deliver an emergency requirement to purchase over 300k CO2 monitors to be delivered at short notice
- Flood Resilience – working as part of Schools Commercial to help raise awareness for schools and to reduce the risk of flooding using a variety of methods
- Period Poverty – working with policy colleagues and ministers to provide access to free period products in schools and 16-19 organisations in England.
- Delivering at pace a voucher scheme to provide Free School Meals to eligible children during the pandemic
Commercial Delivery – where this role is based - has responsibility for a broad portfolio of activity spanning policy development and operational delivery.
If you want to use your procurement, strategic and commercial skills to help improve educational outcomes for thousands of children across the country, please see below for further details about our opportunities.
Job description
This is a challenging and exciting leadership role with a high degree of accountability. You will be driving functional development, encouraging teamwork and building effective relationships to deliver great commercial outcomes.
Locations:
The successful candidate(s) will be able to agree a contractual workplace from those locations listed in this advert. When selecting your location listed in this job advert please be aware that this will be your contractual base location with a requirement to spend a minimum of 60% of your working time in this organisational workplace.
Your time spent on official duties at workplace locations other than your contractual office such as supplier, customer or partner locations required to perform your role is included in the 60% attendance.
This requirement will however take into consideration any reasonable adjustments agreed upon appointment for people with a disability, flexibilities agreed for those with specific caring responsibilities, or other similar temporary flexibilities.
Person specification
- Lead a category focused team managing the full lifecycle of large, complex contracts and grants
- Be central to the development of a category strategy which will deliver best commercial outcomes, underpinning the delivery of DfE objectives
- Ensure savings targets are identified, tracked and delivered; creating initiatives for your team to deliver increasing efficiencies whilst maintaining high performance and managing risk
- Support, challenge and guide senior internal and external stakeholders; providing high quality support to Ministers, Commercial senior leadership, and other DfE stakeholders e.g. Permanent Secretary
- Ensure the team is helping create positive supplier relationships, developing markets, encouraging innovation, “value add” initiatives, a strong customer service ethic, and a culture of continuous improvement
- Delivering significant organisation wide cultural change across a complex landscape through use of compliant commercial processes and facilitation of commercial capability sessions
- Represent Commercial Directorate at senior meetings across DfE and externally at industry events, actively networking with peers to remain current with industry trends and commercial best practice.
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Assertive – Evidence of negotiation skills, likely to have been gained from large deals. Able to demonstrate examples of having been assertive in order to secure a deal/change, while maintaining strong customer and supplier relationships
- Risk Mindset – Experience of designing and implementing a commercial risk strategy/methodology. Ability to analyse commercial risks and understand margins of error in developing recommendations for Customers and/or key stakeholders
- Manages Complexity – Experience of having had a leading role in complex commercial activities, with demonstrable experience across the commercial lifecycle
- Commercial Focus – Evidence of designing, shaping, agreeing and implementing innovative commercial strategies from a lead role in a complex organisation
- Builds Relationships- Evidence of ability to gain credibility, understand & digest complex & detailed information in order to offer advice and have that well-received through strong stakeholder engagement, influencing and communication skills
Benefits
As a valued employee of the Government Commercial Organisation (GCO), you will have access to all the benefits the centre has to offer; including flexible working, generous benefits, Career Coaches, Mentors, L&D, a Commercial College, active talent management and, most importantly, access to commercial projects that will far exceed the scale and complexity on offer elsewhere in the UK.
For existing Civil Servants: For full details of the impact on any move across the civil service on your existing terms and conditions, please read the candidate pack. Please note that any move across the Civil Service may have implications on your ability to continue to claim childcare vouchers.
Things you need to know
Selection process details
Please be advised that the Virtual ADC is taking place on the 19th of November 2024 and will require a full day's attendance.
If you are invited to attend a virtual ADC, but for any reason are unable to meet the date outlined then please get in touch with the team on commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible. The ADC is booked and paid for in advance by departments, therefore it is only in certain circumstances we are able to accommodate alternative dates.
Details of schemes available are attached in the advert.
For full details of our process, and a likely timeline, please read the explanation provided in the attached candidate pack.
Throughout our selection process, we will make decisions about your capability to do the job, based on evidence you provide against the essential criteria for the role which are detailed in the attached Candidate Pack.
Your application will be reviewed by a panel and should you be successful at sift we will invite you to attend a Virtual commercial Assessment and Development Centre (VADC). The panel will review results of the VADC and determine which candidates will go through to a subsequent final panel interview. Please note: Only candidates that achieve an A grade at ADC will be invited to interview for this role.
IMPORTANT: If you do not receive an acknowledgement of your application within 2 working days please contact: commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
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Working for the Civil Service
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
Diversity and Inclusion
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Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name : Ashlene Doherty
- Email : commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email : commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Further information
