Chief Commercial Officer - Home Office

This role sits within my Senior Leadership Team - many of whom, like me, have benefitted from experience outside the Civil Service, e.g. private sector, local government - in the wider Corporate and Delivery command, which includes the Finance, HR, Estates, Project and Portfolio Delivery, and Central Crisis Command functions that all support the Department. This role is accountable for everything that takes place within the commercial sphere. The role will require strong leadership skills and a focus on continuing to improve capability to support and influence the wider business in a very challenging financial environment.
Our commercial environment is complex and broad, ranging from significant IT infrastructure investment and digital development of services, to major outsource contracts that deliver frontline services across the UK. Third party spend accounts for a significant proportion of our operating budget, so it is vital that we achieve Value for Money from these contracts and commercial activities. Our future commercial strategies will need to ensure we are able to maintain Value for Money with increasing quality of service demands, and to ensure that we harness innovation from industry to support the Home Office missions.
For anyone passionate about transforming public services during this crucial time for our country, there’s never been a better time to join our team. I hope that you find this challenge as exciting as I do, and I welcome your application., Reporting to the Home Office Director General Corporate and Delivery, this is the most senior commercial role in the Home Office as the Chief Commercial Officer and Head of Profession. This is also one of the most senior commercial roles in Government.
The purpose of the role is to lead the Commercial and Grants Function at the Home Office and to continue developing the function into a leader across Government, supporting the Department to become more efficient and delivering quality services from its suppliers in line with its objectives.
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 role holder will be accountable for driving value for money from the whole commercial and grant life cycle that supports the Department’s c.£6bn of annual expenditure with third parties and c.£15bn of annual grant awards. You will be accountable for supplier performance and for the delivery of a high performing commercial service including:
+ Being Head of the profession within the Home Office, leading and advocating inside and outside the Home Office, and building close relationships with the Executive Team and Ministers to support delivery of objectives
+ Leading and driving change management in developing a strong commercial function for the Home Office, raising the level of commercial capability throughout the Department, and across government
+ Delivering our Commercial strategy and transformation programme, ensuring alignment with business objectives
+ Leading a large (c300FTE), diverse, and geographically distributed team, ensuring we provide an expert service that customers understand and believe in, and that colleagues feel valued
+ Managing delivery of major change programmes supported by suppliers
+ Sourcing & Procurement Activity
+ Commercial Contract Management
+ Overall Supplier Management
+ Managing crucial changes such as the reform to procurement regulations
As a senior leader of the wider Commercial function, you will
+ Participate fully in Government Commercial Function activities and be an active member of the Commercial Function Leadership Group, playing a role in the broader commercial reform programme led by the Government Chief Commercial Officer
+ Contribute time as an assessor at the Assessment & Development Centre to ensure continuing high standards are set
+ Actively participate in the leadership and delivery of the Commercial Functional Plan, 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 on 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. Please note: Only candidates that achieve an A grade at ADC will be invited to interview for this role.
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.
This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.
As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

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.

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
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.
The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).
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+ Be an outstanding, collaborative, commercial leader with excellent business judgement and highly effective decision making, influencing and negotiation skills, coupled with the ability to use data in decision making
+ Strong evidence of successfully developing and managing complex senior stakeholder relationships across functions, and with a Ministerial team or equivalent senior management, to deliver strong outcomes for the Department
+ Significant experience leading a large & complex commercial function with an annual spend of several billion, providing systems leadership to support delivery of commercial efficiencies & development of a strong corporate services Commercial function
+ Experience building high performing teams – in particular, teams that operate across organisational boundaries, growing confidence and capability, employee engagement, and an inclusive culture
+ A strong track record of driving continuous improvement of core services to achieve increased value for money and efficiencies whilst delivering complex and challenging programmes future proofing organisational sustainability

Please be advised that the Virtual ADC is taking place on 8th November 2024 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.