About the job

Job summary

Have you considered a Civil Service career and the unparalleled opportunities it has to offer in a variety of significant roles, with the potential to change the nation and people’s lives for the better? Our commercial professional positions provide an excellent opportunity for candidates with a background in procurement or contract management to enhance their skills across the end-to-end procurement process and to develop their career as a commercial professional. This is an exciting and challenging role in the Army Commercial Team, which consists of over 100 Commercial Officers and is responsible for hundreds of contracts, the combined value of which is over £5 Billion. This role requires leadership and initiative, as well as important skills such as customer and supplier relationship management. You will have plenty of prospects to develop these and other skills, both on the job and through managed learning opportunities. The role is within the Contract Management team, who deliver a professional contract management service to the Army. We provide support and commercial advice to the Army customer in managing high-value contracts with industry, ensuring that suppliers deliver requirements to the expected standards. We also understand the importance of developing great working relationships with our customers and suppliers. This position is advertised at 37 hours per week. You will be required to work at Army HQ, Andover office 3 days per week. Regular travel (once a month) to Chatham in Kent will be required, as well as some travel to Minley in Surrey.

Job description

Are you seeking a challenging role that will give you excellent opportunities to develop your commercial skills and build high-quality relationships with team members, customers and suppliers?

About Army Commercial:

Army Commercial is one of four Front Line Command teams, alongside Navy, Air and Strategic Command, responsible for working closely with the British Army to deliver innovative solutions to Defence requirements. We play an important role in supporting Defence by contracting a diverse portfolio of requirements ranging in value and complexity from long term commitments in specialist capability areas, to low value short term support contracts and sales contracts generating income and supporting wider Defence engagement priorities.

The Contract Management team sits within the Army Commercial Team. It is spread over several UK locations and is responsible for the commercial management of a portfolio of high value, complex contracts.

About the role:

The Contract Management Senior Executive Officer will primarily be responsible for the commercial management of the 30-year Public Private Partnership (PPP) contract for the Royal School of Military Engineering (RSME). This multi-billion-pound contract covers delivery of training and training support services to the Army, along with a range of Hard and Soft Facilities Management services. The role has Line Management responsibility for a Higher Executive Officer (HEO) post which is located in HQ RSME in Chatham. The post holder will also be involved in managing or supporting other contracts as required.

Effective management of the contracts entails monitoring supplier performance, implementing contractual changes, maintaining value for money, and building and maintaining good working relationships with the customer team, the supplier, and other key stakeholders.

The postholder will build and maintain their effectiveness by ensuring that they keep up to date with contract management, broader commercial and HR policy developments that affect them or their section. They will engage with other parts of the Army Commercial team to ensure that good practice is adopted across the portfolio.

The Contract Management Team is part of the Army Commercial team, and the postholder is expected to contribute to wider activities that contribute to the overall team’s objectives when requested.

Person specification

Key Responsibilities

These involve:

• Day to day management and monitoring of the contracts, working with suppliers and customers to ensure that the contracted performance targets are met.
• Adoption of a continuous improvement approach, identifying areas for improvement and work with both the suppliers and stakeholders to ensure that solutions are found and implemented which maximise value for money over the whole life of the contract.
• The development of close and collaborative relationships with the customer, key stakeholders, and suppliers in order to ensure the delivery of a quality service and value for money.
• Providing leadership and building trust to ensure positive engagement with the customer and suppliers.
• Managing risks and issues, maintaining an up-to-date register.
• Producing reports and information papers to support decision-making at all levels, analysing and using data and information to achieve this.
• Carrying out line management responsibilities.
• Developing yourself and your team members and sharing your knowledge with others.

Person Specification

We are looking for individuals with the following attributes, skills, and experience:

• Strong contract management skills, experience, and commercial awareness.
• Strong leadership skills.
• Experience of managing a team.
• Able to work with suppliers and engage in meaningful but sometimes challenging conversations with stakeholders.
• Experience of managing and interacting with stakeholders, sometimes with conflicting priorities, including senior officials and suppliers.
• Able to work independently, with a proactive approach to the great work that you and your wider team are delivering.
• A flexible and a collaborative attitude to team working, adapting to changing priorities and workloads.
• Previous experience or involvement in public sector procurements would be beneficial (Desirable).

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £43,080, Ministry of Defence contributes £11,631 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

At application you will be assessed against the following:

Candidates will be required to complete a CV (to provide CV details to include job history; qualification details and previous skills and experience.) and personal statement. The personal statement should be no more than 1000 words and should cover the following:

1. Evidence of how you have worked collaboratively as a member of a team and built strong working relationships with colleagues, including those at a level more senior to you.
2. Evidence of managing a team of people.
3. Evidence of your experience in managing contracts, demonstrating the value that your activities delivered.
4. Evidence of how you have managed relationships with suppliers, including where the relationship needed to be developed or improved.
5. Evidence of your experience in the different elements of the procurement process.

At interview you will be assessed against the above, along with the following:

Behaviours:

• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Making Effective Decisions

Technical skills:

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Government_Commercial_Function_GCF_People_Standards_for_the_Profession_Version_3.0
• The competency level for this role is: Commercial Practitioner

You will be assessed against Contract & Supplier Management, Section 6

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact: DBSCivPers-Resourcingteam3@mod.gov.uk .

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical.

The role currently being advertised has not been assessed as business critical and is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

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). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.