About the job

Job summary

Building a strong Commercial Function in Government, and with it the right commercial capability, is at the heart of a far-reaching programme of Civil Service reform.

We are building a cadre of commercial talent in all Government departments; people who can manage our commercial portfolios, who can lead our most complex and novel programmes and projects, people who have the gravitas and depth of experience to work alongside our policy and operational leaders to develop innovative commercial arrangements, whether through joint ventures, outsourcing or best-in-class contracts.

The Government Commercial Organisation is an employer which is truly committed to creating a welcoming, inclusive workplace where all our people are able to bring their whole selves to work and are able to perform to their potential. We understand the importance of diversity and inclusion and strive for a workplace that reflects the communities which we serve. We especially welcome applications from underrepresented groups including Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates, candidates with a disability and candidates with gender-diverse identities. Appointments will be made on merit on the basis of fair and open competition.

We have already made significant progress through the establishment of the Government Commercial Organisation (GCO), our single employer of senior commercial talent across government. This role will sit within the GCO, but based in our UKIC commercial team delivering departmental objectives.

Job description

The ambition of the UKIC Corporate Services organisation is to provide a customer-centric, professional service that meets the needs of the three Agencies’ (MI5, MI6 and GCHQ) missions. The organisation supports all three Agencies and consists of three key functions: Commercial, People and Finance. 

As the Commercial Director, you will be part of the senior leadership team, reporting into the Director General Corporate Services (DGCS) of MI5. Heading this area, you will play a key role in the development of the shared corporate services organisation not only as a functional lead, but as a senior leader across all the functions.

As the Commercial Director you will support and enable front-line work by providing cutting-edge supply arrangements, not just delivering ‘today’ but supporting the Agencies in their ambitious transformation agendas across diversity and inclusion, operational, digital, science and technology as well as corporate and estates and workforce arenas. 

The scale of transformation is significant and also includes geographical expansion across the UK, as the Government ‘levels-up’ opportunity across the country. The Commercial Function plays a core enabling role in all these plans and programmes and your advocacy of how the function enables and drives each is key. Central to your role will be proving to your colleagues and stakeholders that Commercial not only enables supply of exceptional services from industry but can drive new innovation and co-creation within the business.

As Commercial Director you will lead a large team across multiple locations including London and Cheltenham. You will have direct line-management responsibility for a Senior Commercial Specialist who manages the 3 core Categories of estates, technology and professional services and people and Supply Chain Security. Your other direct line management responsibilities will be for a small number of Deputy Directors who lead the Customer Facing Teams and Commercial Operations.

Person specification

• Leading the next chapter of the multi-year transformation of the Commercial Function, to enable and support delivery to the agencies throughout the Community. They will also need to realise Spending Review (SR) 2021 goals and develop the strategic plan for the next SR.
• Building on the work achieved already on an Agencies-wide Commercial Strategy, for a large and particularly complex supply portfolio. Ensuring it delivers external partners that fully meet future supply-side challenges and brings innovation “from outside, in”. 
• Fully embedding the Government’s Social Value Model across the highest value contracts in the supply chain, including making sure that the Community’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) targets for their own organisations are mirrored across the supply chain.
• Enabling the forthcoming digital transformation for the Function and its customers.
• Overall leadership of the Commercial Function, growing a diverse workforce and creating an engaging and inclusive environment for people to thrive.
• Overall delivery of the Commercial agenda to budget, security and quality of service performance.

You will be a role model leader and have substantial experience of managing change and transformation in complex environments. With overall accountability and responsibility for the Function, you will be an advocate for what the team “can do and the value it adds” across the Community. You will also play an important governance role and represent the Commercial Function at various councils and committees, including within the Government Commercial Function. 

Success lies in you operating strategically and working collaboratively with many stakeholders at all levels of the Agencies to deliver results on a broad and highly complex and challenging landscape.

The successful candidate will:

• Be amongst the most senior members of the Government Commercial Function and play a role in the broader commercial reform programme led by the Government Chief Commercial Officer.
• Play a key leadership and change management role in developing a strong commercial function for UKIC and across Government.

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 1st February and will require a full day's attendance. Please contact commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk in advance if you are unable to attend this date.

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. Please note: Only candidates that achieve an A grade at ADC will be invited to interview for this role.

Interviews will be held in person in London

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. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is developed vetting (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

Open to UK nationals only.

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.