About the job

Job summary

The Cabinet Office and HM Treasury operate at the heart of the UK government. These iconic departments are responsible for ensuring the effective running of government, maintaining control over public spending and working to achieve strong and sustainable growth for the UK. 

The Cabinet Office & HM Treasury (COHMT) Commercial team has a vision to be a top performing commercial function in government, setting best practices for others to follow. It offers a unique challenge to commercial professionals who want to work on some of the UK’s most important policy issues. The team works in partnership with all areas of the business, providing a commercial service that covers planning, commercial strategy, sourcing and contract management on circa £1bn of third party spend.

The COHMT Commercial team operates with our core values in mind which are:

We are Curious, Collaborative and Kind, we act with Integrity and are Focused on value for money.

We are looking for a talented, performance-focused and data skilled professional to join the team and help to shape and influence functional and performance strategies within the department. This role will be challenging and hands-on, and will require expert stakeholder management skills as well as a strong grasp of data-led and performance management processes and strategies and the challenges of operating in an ambiguous and fluid environment in Central Government.

Job description

The COHMT commercial team has recently undergone a change to its operating model and is now organised into spend category teams which are supplemented by business partners and embedded commercial teams in specialist areas and programmes. The directorate is supported by a central team responsible for the overall strategy, performance and enabling functions.  

This role will have responsibility for ensuring commercial systems, data and insights are utilised to drive performance improvement and can be used to support effective commercial strategies and decision making. The role will also lead on specific ‘centres of excellence’ or delivery programmes as defined by the Head of Strategy & Performance. These could cover contract management, governance and category management or any other commercial performance programme required.

In this role, you will be required to act under your own initiative and lead and drive projects and services, engaging and influencing key stakeholders within your areas of responsibility.

You will be expected to maintain strong relationships and provide advice and guidance across the Commercial Directorate and wider department.

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

• Support with the development of the commercial functional strategy for the Directorate.
• Lead on the development of a data and systems strategy for the Directorate, to create and evolve data-led decision making and strategic data insights
• Support the development and, where applicable, lead implementation of a commercial systems and data roadmap to enable commercial delivery across the departments.
• Support delivery of reliable systems infrastructure and effective data management in support of the full commercial lifecycle. 
• Enable reporting and insights to inform commercial/category strategies and support robust decision making. Measure and report Directorate performance, fulfilling reporting needs into Corporate Services and the GCF.
• Support establishment and operation of applicable centres of excellence in support of improved functional performance
• Provide outstanding leadership, enabling effective delivery and supporting professional and personal development. Contribute to creating a great place to work, championing diversity and inclusive ways of working.

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

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

Please be advised that the Virtual ADC is taking place on 2nd August 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 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.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. 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.