About the job

Job summary

This position is based nationally.

Job description

ob Title:                  Contract Management Assurance Officer

Job Grade:               HEO

Reporting to:           Contract Management Assurance Officer

Job Location:          National (click HERE to find your nearest location)        

Contract Type:        Permanent 

Business Area:       MOJ – Commercial & Contract Management Department 

Type of role:            Contract Management Assurance – Middle Management

Working pattern:    Flexible working, Full-time

Number of Posts:   1

About the Department:

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is a major government department, at the heart of the justice system. Responsible for courts, prisons, and probation services, we work to ensure sentences are served and offenders are given rehabilitation opportunities to become law-abiding citizens.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has one of the largest and most complex spend profiles in central government. The Commercial and Contract Management Directorate (CCMD) is responsible for coordinating procurement and contract management across the MoJ, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies.

The MoJ spends £6.7bn a year and manages over 1000 active contracts, all of which are sourced and managed by CCMD. We are running some of the most groundbreaking programs such as Prison Reform and His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service Reform. The scope of our contracts ranges from building, maintenance and the operation of Prisons, Courts, and Young Offender establishments through to food for prison dogs. The directorate also buys and manages contracts for feeding up to 80,000 prisoners, the secure escorting of prisoners from numerous establishments based around the country and translation services.

CCMD is organised into category teams, each with an interesting portfolio of contracts and diverse customers and suppliers to manage. We also have systems, programme management office, supplier relationship and risk management teams who work across all areas.

Scope

Portfolio – The Contract Management Improvement Team

The role(s) will be an integral part of the Contract Management Improvement Team (CMIT), sitting within the Commercial Operating Centre, contributing to the establishment, development and provision of assurance and business data analysis for MoJ on the delivery of effective contract management across the Department, Executive Agencies and Arm’s Length Bodies, to reduce risk of contract management failure. CMITs role and outputs are likely to be subject to external scrutiny by the National Audit Office and Parliament.

CMIT provides strategic support to colleagues managing contracted-out services, and assurance against contract management control frameworks for the organisation.

By successfully carrying out this role, the job holder will contribute to reducing the risk of contract management failures and associated financial and reputational impacts on MoJ.

Key Responsibilities

Supporting the CMIT in the scheduling of work, including the CMIT Annual Delivery Plan. Supporting and organising the delivery of agreed assurance and support assignments and demonstrating an effective use of resources and focussed management of the tasks within agreed timescales.

• Responsible for supporting an assigned focus area to ensure that outputs continue to meet the MoJ Outcome Delivery Plan. These areas currently include Assurance & Audit, Capability, and Enterprise Risk Management, with the expectation that you will work flexibly across these areas to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the team.
• Responsible for identifying and collating information and evidence from a variety of sources, utilising it to form intelligence to assess the effectiveness of operational contract management across MoJ. This is likely to be through interviews often with more senior grades, surveys, and system and documentation review.
• Responsible for analysing a combination of both quantitative and qualitative data from a range of data sources drawing out informed conclusions, recommendations and/or solutions to support the MoJ Outcome Delivery Plan.
• Responsible for maintaining and analysing the internal and external audit data held within the CMIT Assurance Tracker.
• Responsible for drafting, amending, and agreeing key documentation to support allocated assignments, developing, and presenting papers and reports to senior leads, strategic level forums and governance boards across MoJ.
• Responsible for supporting MoJ in the effective application of contract management processes and governance, ensuring that learning and experience is utilised and cascaded to build organisational capability.
• Manage the Senior Business Owner (SBO) Appointment Process on behalf of the Accounting Officer, including preparation of all documentation. Responsible for maintaining an up-to-date record of all SBOs.
• Manage CMIT communications on behalf of the Senior Contract Assurance Managers and the Strategic Business Partners. This will include but is not limited to the CMIT Functional Mailbox, the CMIT Communications Strategy, the Contract Management Support Pages, the CMIT Handbook, Senior Business Owner (SBO) newsletters, and SBO emails.
• Act as secretariat at meetings, support the recruitment, induction, and training of new employees, and organise venues and logistics for meetings and events.
• Support the Senior Contract Assurance Manager to deliver capability events ensuring that they are scheduled, attendees are invited, the agenda is developed, and contributors are arranged and briefed. Ensure that feedback is gathered and utilised to build organisational capability.
• Responsible for day-to-day line management and tasking of others within the team.
• Responsible for supporting MoJ in the effective application of contract management processes and governance.
• Responsible for receiving and reviewing confidential whistleblowing communications on contract management processes, referred by relevant HMPPS/MoJ/Government SPOCs, and analysing and escalating concerns appropriately.

The duties/responsibilities listed above describe the post as it is at present and is not intended to be exhaustive. The job holder is expected to accept reasonable alterations and additional tasks of a similar level that may be necessary.

Person Specification

Essential Criteria:

• Evidence of strong written and verbal communication skills, particularly in delivering contract management advice to senior leaders
• Excellent level of proficiency with Microsoft Office suite of products such as Outlook, Word, Teams, and Excel
• High level of organisational ability and excellent time management skills
• Evidence of strong data analysis skills and presenting data in a clear and user-friendly way. 

Desirable Criteria:

• A contract management qualification and/or experience within a contract management/commercial environment
• A qualification in Risk Management and/or Audit, or a willingness to work towards one.
• Understanding and experience in the criminal justice system, especially prisons, probation or courts

Application stage (Sifting):

An initial sift will be performed against the following elements:

• Statement of Suitability (max 750 words)
• Behaviour: Managing a Quality Service
• Behaviour: Making Effective Decisions

Please note that in the event of a large number of applications being received we may run the initial sift on the Statement of Suitability and Lead behaviour of Managing a Quality Service.

If shortlisted, you’ll be invited to an interview and will be assessed on the selected success profile elements at the interview stage. Please carry a valid proof of Id that has your photo on it (passport, BRP, driving licence etc) at the interview.

Interview stage:

There is one interview stage for this vacancy and as part of the interview process you will be required to provide evidence on the following:

• Managing a Quality Service
• Changing and Improving
• Delivering at Pace
• Working Together

Strengths may also be assessed at the interview

Please use STAR approach to structure your examples.

• Situation – Describe the situation you found yourself in and what happened.
• Task – The Hiring Manager will want to understand what you tried to achieve from the situation that you found yourself in.
• Action – What actions did you take and how did you do it. Make sure to use “I”, not “we” to explain how your actions lead to a result.
• Result – Use facts and statistics to demonstrate the results that your actions produced. Explain whether it was a successful outcome, and if not, what you learned from the experience.

Further information on the Success profile elements can be found on Success Profiles - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Person specification

Please refer to Job Description

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £32,827, Ministry of Justice contributes £8,896 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, Strengths and Experience.https://justicejobs.tal.net/vx/candidate/cms/About%20the%20MOJ

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.