Commercial Specialist

The role of the Commercial Specialist (associate commercial practitioner) is to lead and manage high quality procurement projects for Crown Commercial Service (CCS) Category Teams and external customers to deliver their requirements. Working within the procurement Operations Team, it is the post-holder’s responsibility to ensure procurements are delivered in accordance with the public procurement regulations, UK domestic policy and with CCS standard operating procedures.
Full training will be provided on the public procurement regulations, UK domestic policy and CCS standard operating procedures.
Team Summary
The procurement delivery team within Procurement Operations is responsible for delivering all types of procurement activity for both internal and external customers. The team currently has a presence across Norwich, Newport and Liverpool and works to deliver compliant procurement processes inline with current regulations. Procurement Practitioners within the team lead on complex procurements and manage procurement stakeholders from a range of organisations., + Contribute to the delivery of the Procurement Operations business targets through the delivery of compliant and commercially sound procurements in line with the public procurement regulations.
+ Providing support in translating Category colleagues and Customers commercial requirements, into a compliant procurement, which include specific and measurable evaluation criteria
+ Manage the day to day working relationship with assigned Government Legal Department lawyers, ensuring any legal costs remain within budget
+ Take ownership of the modelling of procurement evaluation plans, and provide guidance and training to evaluators
+ Provide excellent customer service to internal customers (Category colleagues) and external customers, ensuring they are appropriately informed about progress, issues and risks in a timely and effective manner
+ Use foresight and judgement to identify the issues and risks associated with the delivery of procurement results, and take early mitigating actions to minimise effects
+ Ensure that a full audit trail is preserved on actions relating to individual procurements and that the central record is continuously maintained
+ Capture lessons learnt and actively encourage the sharing of learning and development of best practice across the Procurement Operations Team
+ Actively seek out and implement opportunities for continuous improvements within the procurement processes and CCS standard operating procedures, Please note: Applicants can make use of artificial intelligence but the information presented at application must be factual.
A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months, which the Civil Service may use to fill future suitably similar vacancies across government for candidates who are considered appointable following interview. Should you be placed on a reserve list and want to be removed please contact recruitment@crowncommercial.gov.uk.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security
Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist 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)

+ Ability to lead projects, to prioritise your own and others’ workloads and to undertake independent decisions with regard to own and others’ workloads without reference to line management
+ Ability to identify project risks, and escalate appropriately To be able to provide excellent customer service, by building and developing stakeholder relationships
+ Ability to communicate with stakeholders to provide/obtain information, seeking clarified detail.
+ To support knowledge sharing within the project/team, + Leadership
+ Changing and Improving
+ Communicating and Influencing

CCS is a flexible business with a smarter working model where our colleagues benefit from a mix of home and office working. Successful candidates are expected to work from one of the office locations listed. Our current office attendance approach requires a minimum of 26 days per quarter (approx 2 days per week, which may be subject to change) in CCS office locations or off site meetings with suppliers, customers, partners, networking / industry events. This is pro rata for those who work part time. Our smarter working principles mean that our people have the advantage of both office and offsite based collaboration and learning, as well as working from home. This way of working allows us to honour our commitment to being a responsible business, offer flexibility and better work life balance as well as ensuring we deliver our business with confidence and in accordance with our CCS values.

Alongside your salary of £34,206, Crown Commercial Service contributes £9,235 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
What we will offer you, here are some of the benefits you can expect:
+ Competitive salary
+ Generous pension scheme
+ A discretionary non-contractual performance related bonus
+ Working remotely in addition to working in advertised office location
+ Flexi time scheme (available for B1-B6)
+ Minimum 25 days annual leave to a maximum service related 30 days excluding bank holidays
Explore fully how we will reward your work.
Want to make a difference? Find out more about the rewarding work that we do in our candidate pack.
At CCS, we actively support, promote and celebrate our differences for the benefit of our employees, suppliers and customers. CCS is proud to be an equal opportunities employer. CCS believes that diversity and inclusion is critical to our success and we seek to recruit, develop and retain the most talented people.