About the job

Job summary

Defence Commercial is committed to helping equip and support the UK Armed Forces to deal with the threats of today, and the challenges of tomorrow.

The Commercial Policy & Knowledge Management Team reports directly into the Commercial Function Directorate. The team’s purpose is to develop, maintain, improve and embed policy throughout the Commercial Function to ensure policy is correctly applied and regulatory rules adhered to; and provide knowledge management to support stakeholders. The team is split into two areas: Commercial Policy Development & Embed; and Knowledge Management. The vacancy is within the Commercial Policy Development & Embed team.

This position is advertised at 37 hours per week.

Job description

As one of 3 Grade 7s in the Policy Development and Embed team, the post holder will lead on the development, improvement, maintenance and embedding of commercial policy throughout the Commercial Function, ensuring policy is correctly applied and regulatory rules adhered to. 

This will include:

• Working with Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) (e.g. Government Commercial Function (GCF)) to ensure central policy/guidance and legislation is applicable to Defence and is implemented in a timely and appropriate way.
• Evaluating and interpreting central policy/guidance and legislation.
• Developing Defence-specific policy/guidance and legislation.
• Identifying where policy/guidance may no longer be fit for purpose for Defence.
• Updating and maintaining existing policy/guidance and legislation.
• Upskilling stakeholders across Acquisition community.
• Working with stakeholders across the Commercial Function to ensure new/updated policy/guidance and legislation is operationalised.

The post holder is responsible for a portfolio of commercial policy topics including procurement legislation, advertising, supplier selection, supplier prompt payment and conflicts of interest. A major focus for the post over the coming months is the implementation of changes to policy/guidance arising from the Procurement Act 2023 which replaces current procurement legislation from October 2024. This requires the post holder to manage the whole team activity to deliver the implementation programme, ensuring all relevant policies and supporting guidance are reviewed and updated, and new ones established where necessary.

The post holder needs to be flexible, able to adapt to changing priorities, self-starting and keen to embrace cross boundary working.

Person specification

The post holder will be responsible for a portfolio of commercial policy subjects, developing subject matter expertise in those subjects and leading a team of up to 5 Policy Development & Embed Senior Officers (SEO) and Policy Development & Embed Officers (HEO) to deliver the required outputs. hHe post holder is also leading the whole team activity related to changes arising from the introduction of the Procurement Act. 

The key skills and experience required for this role are:

Essential:

• Experience of working in a commercial environment, either gained from MOD, Government or external organisations.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills including briefing and drafting
• Stakeholder Engagement/Management including the ability to communicate with stakeholders across various levels of seniority and gain stakeholder endorsement for change initiatives
• Understanding the delivery context and effective implementation planning
• Leading a team to deliver a prioritised programme of work

Desirable:

• Previous experience of policy development or policy implementation
• Experience of innovation and solutions development
• Experience of the public procurement legislation 
• CIPS Level 5

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £57,670, Ministry of Defence contributes £15,570 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 and Experience.

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

Candidates can apply online via the Civil Service Jobs website by completing the application form before the deadline shown.

Candidates will be required to complete an online CV template to include job history, full details of education and qualifications and previous experiences and skills. You will be assessed against your relevant, skills, knowledge and experience which demonstrates the essential criteria listed within this advert.

Candidates will be required to complete a Supporting Statement of no more than 1000 words, which should include evidence of the essential, and, if applicable, desirable skills and experience detailed below.

At sift, you will be assessed against the following Success Profiles Behaviours: - 

• Seeing the Big Picture 
• Communicating and Influencing  
• Leadership  
• Changing and Improving 
• Making Effective Decisions 

 At interview, you will be assessed against the following Success Profiles Behaviours: - 

• Seeing the Big Picture 
• Communicating and Influencing  
• Changing and Improving 
• Making Effective Decisions 

Essential:

• Experience of working in a commercial environment, either gained from MOD, Government or external organisations.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills including briefing and drafting
• Stakeholder Engagement/Management including the ability to communicate with stakeholders across various levels of seniority and gain stakeholder endorsement for change initiatives
• Understanding the delivery context and effective implementation planning
• Leading a team to deliver a prioritised programme of work

Desirable:

• Previous experience of policy development or policy implementation
• Experience of innovation and solutions development
• Experience of the public contracts regulations
• CIPS Level 5

In the event this advert receives a substantial number of applicants, an initial sift will be conducted against the CV and Behaviour evidence only.

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came in to 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.