About the job

Job summary

This is a fantastic opportunity to join the largest and most complex commercial function in Government.  The MOD spends over £20 billion per year across nearly 6,000 contracts. Due to the refreshed Defence Command Paper, the Commercial Assistance and Scrutiny Team (CAST) has undergone some operation model changes to best support the Commercial objectives for 2024/25 and beyond.

This is a high-profile role, which requires ambitious individuals who want the opportunity to shape and influence the way we work with MoD Commercial and cross-Whitehall. The role is multi-faceted, giving the post holders the opportunity to broaden their Commercial experience across a wide range of activity:

• Delivery of scrutiny across a diverse range of procurements and programs
• Assistance with Cabinet Office Commercial Controls partnering closely with Commercial Officers and Cabinet Office Business Partners
• Policy reviewing and identification of Capability gaps
• Developing reporting tools and briefings
• Delivery of the Acquisition Pipeline

These positions provide a unique opportunity to gain insight into a diverse range of activities, of varying complexity, utilising commercial knowledge while developing your stakeholder management, reporting and communicating with seniors, and building a strong risk mindset. For the right candidate these roles can be tailored based on your key skills, career plan, and preferred development opportunities to best support CAST achieve its objectives.

Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working.  This is a non-contractual arrangement where all office-based employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in office, subject to capacity and any required workplace adjustments. Requirements to attend other locations for official business, or work in another MOD office, will also count towards this level of attendance. Applicants can request further information regarding how this may work in their team from the Vacancy Holder (see advert for contact details). Defence Business Services cannot respond to any questions about working arrangements. 

This position is advertised at 37 hours per week.

Job description

The successful candidate must perform in the position quickly and therefore should already be working in a commercial or data and analysis environment, seeking to build on their existing skillset. Be a self-starter, who is confident with decision making and able to work effectively both independently and as part of a team.

You will report directly into the CAST Business Manager but will work flexibly to support across portfolios depending on complexity and volume, matrix managed by the CAST Partners.

You will need to identify and build strong relationship networks, identify opportunities and risks, and be confident communicating with senior leaders. This role provides a unique opportunity to support and transform the biggest commercial and procurement function in UK Government. 

1. Delivering commercial scrutiny on MoD Business Cases. Working collaboratively and collegiately to provide progressive assistance throughout the procurement lifecycle. Ensuring Commercial Delivery Teams are prepared for their approvals, and aware of what scrutiny will be checking against.
2. You will support the preparation of scrutiny reports to ensure that senior members attending key governance boards are appropriately informed and understand the strategic and commercial issues, benefits management, and overall programme objectives. This includes articulating recommendations, and highlighting risks and impacts and identifying ways to mitigate this.
3. Maintenance of the on-boarding and off-boarding pack, inclusive of training and useful links to ensure a successful introduction to all new starters to the team. This will include keeping records of training and mandatory training across the team.
4. You will support the CAST Commercial Business Manager with developing and maintaining the following: Business Continuity Plan, Risk Register, Lessons Learnt log, Continuous Improvement plan, Cabinet Office Conditions tracking, Policy Reviewing, Business Rules, Terms of Reference, Terms of Engagement, Acquisition Pipeline, Cabinet Office Pipeline, and other Pipeline requirements as identified.
5. Responsibility to collect and collate data from all operations to add strategic insight to senior commercial management. This will include forming strong relationships with all CAST Partners to ensure accurate capture of key themes and trends across their portfolios. Within this there will be the opportunity to take ownership and autonomy over your workload, driving improvement and change where a need is identified.
6. Manage the updates and influence of Procurement Reform on CAST ways of working, scrutiny terms of reference, and Acquisition Pipeline impacts.
7. Manage the caveat and conditions trackers from both the IAC and Cabinet Office Commercial Spend Controls, getting updates from the CAST Partners on completed or updated conditions monthly.

Person specification

Essential Experience:

1. Experience of participating in a range of commercial activities, including an understanding of commercial strategies, and contract literacy with experience in interpreting and drafting contractual arrangements.
2. Evidence of working collaboratively as a member of a team, able to secure confidence of, and to build strong working relationships with colleagues including those outside of the commercial function
3. Excellent communication skills, relating complex information to non-specialist audience both on a 1:2:1 basis and in a large forum.
4. Ability to innovate by generating ideas, seizing opportunities, and forging effective partnerships.
5. Experienced with the MS Office suite (particularly Powerpoint and Excel)

Desired Experience:

1. Evidence of understanding and implementing key Government policies in line with the Sourcing Playbook, the transparency agenda, net zero etc.
2. Understanding of Cabinet Office Spend Controls.
3. Expertise in PowerBI, Excel, reporting and data analysis.
4. Experience or a qualification in project management methodologies.

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 and Experience.

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

Stage 1 - At application stage the Success Profiles elements you will be assessed against are Experience and Behaviours.

CV - Candidates will be required to complete a CV including job history, full details of education and qualifications and previous experiences and skills.

Statement of Suitability - Candidates will be required to complete a Statement of Suitability (maximum 500 words), detailing:

1. Relevant or transferable job-related experience demonstrating good management of competing priorities
2. Relevant or transferable job-related experience demonstrating analysing and using a range of relevant, credible information from internal and external sources to support decisions and present key findings.

Behaviours - The behaviours you will be expected to submit responses to at application stage are:

Delivering at Pace
Leadership

If there are a high number of applicants an initial sift on CV and the lead behaviour Delivering at Pace will be conducted.

Stage 2 - If successful at stage 1, candidates will be invited for interview. During the interview you will be assessed on the Behaviours relevant to the post using the same criteria set out in the Success Profiles and Commercial Competency Framework.

Behaviours - You will be expected to give clear examples of previous experience relating to the following Success Profiles behaviours. You should ensure that you read and understand the criteria within the Success Profile document and provide evidence of those criteria using the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) format:

• Delivering at Pace
• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Making Effective Decisions

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.