Deputy Commercial Head – Synergy Programme
Government Commercial Function
Apply before 11:55 pm on Sunday 27th October 2024
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About the job
Job summary
Do you want to be part of an energetic, innovative team and bring your skills to one of the biggest changes to the administration of the Civil Service in decades?
We’re looking for people who are flexible, intuitive and are comfortable taking high levels of volume, speed and complexity in their stride.
A number of exciting new roles have come up in the Synergy Programme, a cross-departmental group formed in response to Government Business Services request for individual departments to group together in ‘clusters’ to drive efficiencies, increase buying power and improve the quality of shared service to our end users – our people.
The Synergy Programme is the largest of five departmental clusters, comprising the Ministry of Justice, Department for Work and Pensions, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Home Office. The Department of Work and Pensions hosts the Synergy Programme. Your work will impact the procurement arrangements for the next 15 years, impacting over 50% of all Civil Servants – that’s 230,000 people across the four departments and arm’s length bodies.
Success of the Programme is crucial as Civil Servants rely on shared services to provide business critical tools in human resources, finance, payroll, and procurement. It affects everything we do, from joining a department as a new starter, the way we claim for expenses, how we buy goods and services such as our laptops and canteen provisions, to the way we receive our pensions when we retire.
If you’re someone who can use your experience to streamline procurement to drive out error, waste, and duplication we want to hear from you. But most importantly, we’re looking for applications from people who can also demonstrate a passion for our core ambition - delivering a once in a generation, transformed service that Civil Servants will use as a result of the Synergy Programme.
Job description
The Synergy Programme has been established to bring together the individual Department plans in line with the Government Business Service (GBS) published Shared Services Strategy for Government: this includes building a common operating model, Business Process Services (BPS), single technology, and single commercial strategy.
The Synergy Programme comprises commercial activities on behalf of the Cluster Departments above, including stakeholder management, capturing requirements for all procurements, helping the business cross Departments to define business strategies for multi-year common IT systems and back office services in order to define the optimum commercial option to deliver said business strategies.
DWP is currently the lead contracting authority for The Synergy Programme.
The post holders would be aligned and will report to the Synergy SCS lead of the commercial workstream.
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 end-to-end procurement activity for transformed future Shared Services and required Synergy Client-side support contracts, as well as supporting exit activities from existing departmental contracts.
- Working closely with the other Synergy workstreams, and in partnership with our Government Legal Department colleagues, to lead and manage all end-to-end procurement activities. Identify, and mitigate against commercial and legal risks across all procurements and contracts.
- Producing Business Case Commercial Case from OBC to FBC and the end-to-end approvals and support the SCS1 lead through all governance requirements.
- Supporting the design, benchmarking, set up and mobilisation of payment mechanisms linked to Model Services Contract.
- Develop and maintain a pipeline of current and future Synergy support contracts.
- Manage all Contracts associated with the delivery of the Synergy Programme
- Prepare BPS ITT, execute procurement for future BPS, supported by a commercial strategy for service continuity.
- Prepare for and execute the extension of incumbent share services across the Cluster Departments.
- Draft the Commercial Case as part of Synergy’s Full Business Case that delivers significant savings across Government for all procurements regardless of stage in the commercial lifecycle.
- Contribute to the development of business strategy in the assigned business areas and ensure that commercial opportunities and threats are recognised and acted upon. Be seen as a trusted advisor by the business leadership team and provide expert commercial advice.
- Assure the quality and consistency of the procurement and contract management undertaken by the team, and introduce corrective measures where standards are not maintained. Ensure Commercial policy, GO processes and standards are followed as appropriate, tailored to the procurement / contract in question.
- Develop strong pan-Government relationships, specifically in relation to the Cabinet Office shared services strategy as executed via the Clustering approach. Support the SCS1 workstream lead in aligning activity cross-Cluster, manage relationships with other Clusters to promulgate best practice and lessons learned from Synergy procurement.
- Introduce the Commercial performance management regime that assesses suppliers, within the Synergy business area, in particular in the context of a multi-stakeholder, cross Government environment.
- Contribute to the development and implementation of Synergy Commercial strategy, planning and supplier’s performance management regime. Specifically, support the SCS1 workstream lead in executing new Gold contracts, operationalising commercial governance and educating /coaching the business what operational contract management is for Gold contracts.
- Set an example and contribute to the wider GCO agenda, championing the processes and behaviours.
- Managing a multi-year Technology contract in line with Government Commercial Function operating standards for Gold contracts.
- Preparing and executing high value, complex procurements
- Manage high performing Teams to deliver multiple procurements to support multi year Programme Delivery
- Manage senior stakeholders, preparing ministerial briefings and submissions to brief executive level officials.
Management
- Recruit the commercial leads in the team; manage the team providing training & development and provide mentoring and coaching to develop staff capability and skills.
- Contribute to the development of Commercial Directorate culture, values and behaviours.
- Manage talent and recruitment processes to develop capability, including succession.
- Contribute to wider DWP Commercial Directorate (CD) corporate initiatives, e.g. reform of assurance processes, governance, participation in exercises that review the make-up and structure of the CD.
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Risk Mindset – 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
- Decisive – Defends the Programme’s position with conviction, demonstrating resilience in interactions with suppliers and across the team and across organisations
- Commercial Focus – Ability to deliver commercial strategies based on market analysis, deep understanding of business needs; ability to identify commercial trade-offs, understanding of suppliers strengths/ weakness and cost drivers
- Builds Relationships – Promotes commercial awareness across the department and gains buy in to commercial advice by articulating the commercial deal succinctly including description of implementation challenges and risks
- Procurement Process – Experience in the development of strategies for high value/risk, critical/complex procurements and playing a leading role in the implementation and end to end delivery of these
Benefits
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
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 at 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.
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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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).
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Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name : Sean Kelly
- Email : commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email : commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Further information
