80573 - Assistant Commercial Manager x2

About the Department:

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is a major government department, at the heart of the justice system. Responsible for courts, prisons and probation services, we work to ensure sentences are served and offenders are given rehabilitation opportunities to become law-abiding citizens. 

You will become part of the team that manages one of the largest and most complex spend profiles in central government. The Commercial and Contract Management Directorate (CCMD) is responsible for coordinating procurement and contract management across the MoJ, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies.  

With an annual spend of over £3.5bn a year and responsibility for 1,000 active contracts, all of which are sourced and managed by the Commercial and Contract Management Directorate.

The Commercial and Contract Management Directorate (CCMD), which employs over 200 commercial professionals and is organised into category teams, each with an interesting portfolio of contracts, diverse customers and suppliers to manage. In addition, the MoJ, has systems team, programme management offices, supplier relationship and risk management teams who work across all areas. This role would sit within the Commercial Property team within CCMD. 

Scope of the role:

The role(s) will focus on supporting one of the Ministry of Justice’s largest and most ambitious programmes of work to date, the Property Transformation Programme. This exciting and challenging programme seeks to transform and bring the MoJ estate up to date, ensuring it is suitable for the demands of the 21st century use. It will bring together Prisons, Probation and other Arms Lengths Bodies under the same contracts to transform the delivery of Facilities Management (FM) services through modernising the estate and reducing estate running costs. The scope of the Property Transformation Programme includes MoJ Headquarter sites, over 100 prisons in England and Wales and approximately 490 Probation sites.

FM is an organisational function which integrates people, places and processes within the built environment with the purpose of improving the quality of life and the productivity of the core business. The FM provision ensures that, buildings are secure, safe, and fit for or operational use and therefore comply with mandatory and statutory requirements.

The role(s) will be an integral part of the Commercial Team to re-procure the contracts for the FM provision across the estate. With such a varied and vast estate in scope for the Programme, this is a great development opportunity, as you will work across diverse teams, gain valuable insights into the management and delivery of complex procurements, as well as experience a large-scale programme.

Key Responsibilities:

• Support and lead as appropriate the end-to-end procurement process, including:
• planning and delivering market engagement;
• co-ordination of the development of the procurement strategies;
• development of tender documentation such as Instructions to Tender (ITT), contract terms, data room development, pricing and technical evaluation methodology;
• developing and monitoring procurement timelines to ensure timely delivery;
• development of understanding of the most effective and appropriate evaluation strategies;
• the tender response period including supplier clarifications;
• evaluation and moderation process;
• planning supplier clarifications and negotiations post ITT period;
• notifying of award and issuing finalised contracts.
• Providing commercial support and guidance to a range of stakeholders across the programme and the wider CCMD property team, ensuring the delivery of the Department’s objectives is informed by commercial best practice.
• Undertake all work in compliance with applicable legislation, Cabinet Office guidance, MoJ processes and procedures.
• Support with the administration of electronic sourcing and management systems to ensure all commercial decisions are evidenced, MoJ obligations around Transparency are carried out, such as contract changes and Contracts Finder updates.
• Engage with and build relationships across a large range of internal and external stakeholders.
• Provide support as required to the wider programme team, in particular the project planning team, with the project plan review and risk management activities.
• Provide administrative support to the PTP Commercial Team where required.

Person Specification

Essential Criteria:

• Relevant commercial & procurement experience with a good understanding of the end-to-end procurement process.
• Strong stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to deliver activities to a high standard, on time.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Good level of proficiency with Microsoft Office suite of products such as Outlook, Word, Teams and Excel.
• Good data analysis skills and presenting data in a clear and user-friendly way.

 Desirable Criteria:

• An understanding of public sector procurement principles and legislation.
• Experience within Construction / Facilities Management category environment, or similar.

• An understanding of e-procurement systems such as Jaggaer and AWARD.

• Working towards or a willingness to work towards MCIPS.

Application form stage assessments:

You will be required to submit a Statement of Suitability and CV, which should outline your experience and skills against the essential and desirable criteria listed above.

An initial sift will be performed based on the following elements:

• Statement of Suitability (Max 750 words);
• CV

Interview:

If shortlisted, you will be invited to an interview and will be assessed on the selected success profile elements at the interview stage. Please ensure you have a valid proof of ID that has your photo on it (passport, BRP, driving licence etc) at the interview.

There is one interview stage for this vacancy and as part of the interview process you will be required to provide evidence of the following at HEO level together with technical skills and experience.

The Civil Service Success Profiles Framework sets out the standard skills, knowledge, behaviours and strengths that all civil servants are expected to meet. As part of this process we will be testing you on the following:

Behaviours

• Communicating and Influencing
• Delivering at Pace
• Making effective decisions
• Working together
• Managing a Quality Service

Experience

As part of the interview, we will test your experience specifically in relation to procurement. This will include those areas as outlined in the key responsibilities, essential and desirable criteria above. 

Strengths

Strengths may also be assessed at interview.

Please use STAR approach to structure your examples.

Situation – Describe the situation you found yourself in and what happened.

Task – The Hiring Manager will want to understand what you tried to achieve from the situation that you found yourself in.

Action – What actions did you take and how did you do it. Make sure to use “I”, not “we” to explain how your actions lead to a result.

Result – Use facts and statistics to demonstrate the results that your actions produced. Explain whether it was a successful outcome, and if not, what you learned from the experience.

Further information on the Success profile elements can be found on Success Profiles - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Additional Information  

Salary and benefits are as advertised for this post. Successful candidates at the interview stage of the process, will be offered the position at the advertised starting scale for this post. New entrants are expected to join on the pay minimum. Higher starting salary and / or Recruitment & Retention Allowance (RRA) may be available for successful candidates with exceptional skills and experience. Salaries are reviewed on annual basis and amended in accordance with HR policy and aligned to individual performance.

The specialist allowance applies to suitably qualified candidates (CIPS, World CC etc). We will consider applications from non-qualified candidates, who are willing to develop and work towards a recognised qualification to meet the full requirements of the role. Further details can be provided during the recruitment process.