Commercial Lead – Digital

The Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ), and the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT) share some of their back office corporate services to deliver efficiencies on behalf of the taxpayer. The Integrated Corporate Services (ICS) organisation covers a range of back-office functions from Digital, Estates, Security, HR, Finance, and Commercial.
The ICS Commercial team provide procurement delivery support to the corporate functions across DESNZ, DSIT, and the ICS, and provide commercial enabling services to commercial teams across the departments. We’re a team of 32 spread across the country, building expert commercial services and supporting our diverse stakeholder groups to maximise value.
The ICS Commercial Team have recently taken on Commercial Delivery for Digital Services across DESNZ. In this role, you will have a leading role in setting the procurement strategy for Digital Services across DESNZ. You will be delivering procurements, driving value for money, and risk management excellence across the category. In addition to this, you will support the Policy Areas in DESNZ to develop relationships with the Department’s key and strategic suppliers., This role will be part of the Digital & Corporate Services procurement team. With a remit of more than £120m of annualised spend, this team cover a diverse range of stakeholders with a combination of operational and project-based spend.
Your role will be to bring your commercial expertise to this team for Digital Services. Your key stakeholder groups will be the Policy Areas across DESNZ where they have digital requirements including the Industrial Decarbonisation and Emissions Trading team. You will provide a customer-focused service, understanding the business needs with the aim of becoming a trusted commercial advisor.
You will bring digital category expertise to set the Commercial Strategy in this area to identify opportunities for improvement and looking for aggregation opportunities where appropriate.
You will provide expert advice when working with stakeholders, supporting to understand needs and define requirements, set out sourcing options and lead procurement activities.
You will also support the policy teams with commercial contract management for key and strategic suppliers, helping with continuous improvement activities and supporting with commercial issues and resolving disputes. You’ll liaise with our central contract management lead to help operational contract managers upskill and maximise the value we drive from our contracts.
Desirable Experience:
+ Digital Procurement Specialist
+ Experience leading large and/or complex procurement activities
+ Category Management and Contract Management experience (desirable)
+ An understanding of Public Procurement Regulations would be helpful, but we would welcome candidates from both a public and private sector background to apply
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., + Developing commercial approaches that meet business needs, deliver category strategies, and capitalise on market trends.
+ Contributing to the development of category strategies and delivery of sourcing requirements within commercial, as part of the team supporting business as usual and project activities.
Understanding relevant sourcing options and analysis, delivering positive outcomes through the procurement process:
+ Performing end-to-end strategic sourcing activities for the department and serving as a subject matter expert.
+ Working with key stakeholders to develop a clear and agreed view of business requirements, supporting business units in articulating their commercial requirements.
+ Advising and providing professional guidance throughout the sourcing process, considering and evaluating a range of sourcing models to select the right one for the project at-hand.
+ Providing a procurement service to the department which delivers demonstrable value for money.
+ Understanding and being accountable for sourcing compliance.
Ensuring effective Commercial Contract and Supplier Management within the category:
+ Managing contract variations, providing practical advice and strategic direction.
+ Monitoring progress against the business objectives and works with suppliers and customers to develop improvements.
+ Resolving disputes effectively and efficiently.
+ Advising on and mitigating risks to the continuity of supply.
Building and maintaining key relationships across the department and with important external stakeholders:
+ Developing key stakeholder relationships, enabling early engagement and challenging business need and demand. Seeking early active involvement of internal stakeholders in the sourcing process.
+ Providing commercial advice to stakeholders on all aspects of commercial protocol.
+ Engaging, where required, with the relevant senior business lead, ensuring that business requirements are supported by category strategies.
At all times ensure your work is compliant with Departmental policies and procedures, the Public Contract Regulations 2015 and the new Procurement Act., We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process, 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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+ Manages Complexity - Experience of having had a leading role in complex commercial activities, with demonstrable experience across the commercial lifecycle
+ Market Insight - Experience of using Market Insight to drive benefits and improvements in a category or area of spend
+ Builds Relationships - Ability to proactively build effective relationships across an organization including stakeholders such as customers, commercial colleagues, other government departments or organisations to deliver commercial outcomes
+ Procurement Process - Experience in the development of strategies for high value/risk, critical/complex procurement's 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 17th December 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.