Assistant Director, Major Programmes Commercial Team

HMRC has an ambitious portfolio of transformational change. This includes re-platforming and transformation of its customer engagement capabilities, modernisation of infrastructure across the UK’s borders, introduction of new debt and compliance management capabilities and completing the migration of over 60,000 people into 14 new regional center offices which will operate as hubs for hybrid working.
All of this is being delivered whilst the Department continues to collect tax and provide vital financial support to individuals and businesses. The Department’s Change Programmes are delivered within relevant business areas such as the Customer Service Group, Customer Compliance Group and Borders and Trade. Transformational change is often technology-enabled and delivered via the CDIO function.
This is an exciting opportunity to expand your commercial influence into the upstream development of major change Programmes. This role will give you a breadth of experience in understanding the End-to-End Change Lifecycle and the opportunities to improve commercial thinking and acumen from early shaping of Programme objectives to the delivery of outcomes. You will also gain invaluable insight into how HMRC shapes and develops its strategic investment decisions.
You will join a high-performing team of skilled commercial specialists and will be accountable for several Programmes at varying stages of maturity taking ownership for identifying opportunities to improve value for money solutions through compliant tendering optimal use of diverse markets, cost modeling, outcome-based specifications, in-life Programme management, the application of the HMG Sourcing Playbook and public contract regulations under the new Procurement Act.
It is a fast-paced environment, and HMRC is a large and complex organisation, but you will be well supported by the wider team and will join at an exciting – and challenging – time as we continue to support HMRC’s in-flight Transformation Programmes and the development of a pipeline for future Programmes to be delivered by the next Spending Review., You will build and maintain stakeholder relationships with SRO’s and Programme Directors across HMRC Programme(s), providing specialist Commercial advice in alignment with functional standards (GovS-008) and best practice commercial approaches. The successful candidate will undertake the following activities:
+ To be the trusted commercial advisor to, and work with, HMRC’s most high-profile Programmes, developing effective commercial strategies and implementing creative solutions.
+ Build and maintain stakeholder relationships across HMRC Programme(s), providing specialist Commercial advice on best practice commercial approaches such as value for money through more competition, market engagement, outcome-based requirements, make versus buy, should cost modelling.
+ To develop customer relationships to help build a forecast of demand for commercial services and to work collaboratively with commercial colleagues to plan and execute the related commercial work in your Portfolio of Programmes.
+ Develop effective Commercial models by constructively challenging requirements and providing innovative solutions.
+ Work closely with Commercial colleagues to ensure market intelligence and category expertise are incorporated into Programme decision making, and all Commercial activities are appropriately aligned to relevant Category Plans
+ Identify and maintain a forward pipeline of Commercial requirements for the relevant Programme(s), ensuring that the Pre-Award teams have early visibility of forthcoming activity.
+ Develop an in-depth knowledge of your Programmes and the outcomes they are delivering to provide appropriate commercial options. Highlighting perceived risks, and issues, working with stakeholders and suppliers to mitigate and manage risks.
+ Identify and share opportunities to support HMRC’s strategic objectives and inform category strategies.
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
The successful candidate will:
+ Build strategic relationships with Senior Responsible Officers, Programme & Project Directors, Finance Directors, and Project Managers to understand their desired business outcomes. Provide sound commercial advice and the right level of constructive challenge to stakeholders to ensure the commercial strategy within the Business Cases secures investment approvals
+ Ensure the execution of commercial strategies developed in the relevant Programme Business Case fully meet customer requirements, achieves value for money and delivers wider commercial benefits
+ Work flexibly across the Change Delivery Portfolio and be able to add value at all stages of the Programme lifecycle including early market engagement, commercial strategy development, service mobilisation and delivery issue resolution
+ To ensure that commercial processes applied to the Programme are executed in a manner that is compliant and consistent but value adding to its customers
+ To ensure that the suppliers for our Programmes deliver best value and performance in-life
+ Drive continuous improvement and ensure an innovative, risk-based, and agile approach to commercial is consistently applied within Programmes
+ To ensure Programme plans and strategies are appropriately aligned and incorporated across the relevant sub-category strategies
+ Develop cross-functional upstream collaboration with Commercial Category teams and downstream with Commercial Contract Management to provide category and market insight into Programmes – using expertise & knowledge from across wider Commercial Directorate teams
+ To develop customer relationships and build a forecast of demand for commercial services and to work collaboratively with commercial colleagues to plan and execute the related commercial work in your Programmes
+ Membership of, and active participation in MPCT Leadership Team, Commercial Directorate Extended Senior Leadership Team, and relevant corporate contributions
+ To engage with the wider team across our flexible resource pool to help create a valued, respected and motivated team
+ 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 the HM Revenue & Customs and across Government., 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.

Diversity and Inclusion
The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information
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+ Experience in or an understanding of working within large and complex Programme environments would be beneficial.

Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
+ Risk Mindset - Ability to analyse commercial risks and understand margins of error in developing recommendations for Customers and/or key stakeholders
+ Manages Complexity - Experience of having had a leading role in complex commercial activities, with demonstrable experience across the commercial lifecycle
+ Resilient - The ability to corporately challenge senior stakeholder decisions, work under pressure, and deliver multiple projects within agreed timescales
+ Builds Relationships - Experience of influencing stakeholders, providing clear technical issues in a coherent way to help them arrive at decisions through active and sound advice
+ Understanding Sourcing Needs - Has holistic view across the commercial lifecycle to create strategies that maximise the return on investment, improve costs & delivery by developing commercial relationships to achieve stakeholder objectives
+ Procurement Process - Experience in the development of strategies for high value/risk, critical/complex procurements and playing a leading role in the implementation and end to end delivery of these

Please be advised that the Virtual ADC is taking place on 10th February 2025 and will require a full day's attendance.

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.