Associate Commercial Specialist Digital

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) touch the lives of everyone in the UK in some shape or form, delivering services and support to help people find work, assist with a disability or provide support through their retirement. As a key part of DWP, the Commercial Directorate (CD) shapes how services are delivered across 100s of 3rd party contractual arrangements; with an annual procurement spend in the region of 3bn with some of the largest industry suppliers. CD has undergone a transformation exercise to develop into a world class Commercial function and is focused on continuously developing our achievement against Government Commercial Operating Standards.

This role represents an opportunity to join the Senior team in DWP commercial, one of the largest and highest performing commercial teams in central government. The DWP commercial team manages third-party delivery, providing services to 80 thousand staff and over 20 million customers, with an annual contracted expenditure of almost 3bn. We support DWP to achieve its objectives by enabling effective and value-for-money delivery of DWP policies and programmes, driving better outcomes for citizens through best use of commercial partnering and third-party supplier delivery opportunities.

This role reports directly to: Neil McCann who has overarching SCS1 responsibility for 6 of the 10 Digital subcategories

• Customer Contact Team,
• Core Digital Services Team,
• Data & Analytics and Digital Health Services Team,
• Fraud Error & Debt (FED) Team
• Children, Later Life, Bereavement, Care and Supporting Services
• Benefits Efficiency & Administration Management (BEAM) project Team

As a sub-category within the Digital Category, the role holder will work with Neil as part of the Senior Leadership Team to support DWPs transformation of its digital services.

DWPs Commercial Directorate (CD) is organised in an end to end" category management model to support the Departments strategic objectives. Individual CD team members own all aspects of the commercial lifecycle, from pre-procurement, through to sourcing (Tendering and Contracting) and In Life Management (including Contract Management and Supplier Relationship Management).

CD plays a crucial role in driving DWPs efficiency agenda, half of DWPs controllable costs is represented by third party spend. Early engagement with stakeholders and use of market intelligence and other insights are critical to delivering better commercial outcomes.

We work closely with Government Commercial Authority who bring together policy, advice and leveraged multi-client buying.

We are seeking an experienced commercial professional to lead the Fraud Error & Debt (FED) Digital sub-category team. This senior role represents an exciting opportunity to influence and shape DWPs strategy to enhance its offer to ensure delivery of a wide variety of contracts supporting a series of DWP critical programmes across the sub-category.

The role holder will be responsible for continuing the development and implementation of a commercial strategy that meets Departments FED requirements. With this the role holder will be required to build strong working and influential relationships with the Directors across the breadth of stakeholder Directorates.

The role holder will lead a team of circa 5 commercial colleagues (across Manchester and Blackpool) and will have the expertise to shape the future direction of commercial enablement for the Digital FED Team.

We welcome applications from experienced commercial leaders who have demonstrable success in engaging stakeholders across multiple business areas, managing diverse teams and delivering excellent commercial outcomes with their underpinned commercial assurance.

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.

The successful candidate will be responsible for:

Strategic delivery and management of the Fraud Error & Debt (FED) Digital Sub-Category:

• Lead a team of circa 5 Commercial experts, maintaining an inclusive and supportive team culture and ensuring capability and skills are built and developed through coaching, mentoring, and sharing of expertise and experience.
• Develop and deliver key procurements for the FED sub-Category including Future Debt Solution, Debt & Fraud Augmented Resources, Transcription Services, Appropriate Adult Services, Counter Fraud & Error Management System.
• Work with relevant internal and external stakeholders driving consistency in the approach and management of pipeline of commercial services, prioritising compliance with governance and legislative requirements.
• Work with stakeholders to understand and gain insight regarding future demand and any shift in departmental priorities, increased and/or changed demand, including changes in Policy and Legislation.
• Support make v buy decisions and where the recommendation is to buy, assess the markets capability to meet the business needs.

Understand the relevant sourcing options, delivering positive outcomes through the procurement process:

• Work with key stakeholders to build and maintain the pipeline of contractual activities.
• Deliver the pipeline of contracts and other activities associated with sub-category.
• Work closely with GCA to ensure their Frameworks are future proofed to meet pipeline of category requirements.
• Work closely with senior stakeholders, including requirement owners, finance and other Digital support functions.
• Support the development of business cases, demonstrating value for money, benefits of the preferred options and outlining any associated risks.

Ensure effective Commercial Contract and Supplier Management within the category:

• Commercially manage the live contracts within the sub-category pipeline, applying relevant treatment strategies and risk based commercial management according to their Bronze, Silver and Gold contract classification, contributing to SRM activities where appropriate.
• Assure compliance with regulatory and policy requirements and functional standards.
• Work with cross cutting business areas to ensure end to end processes are in place that support Digital enablement of sub-category.
• Engage suppliers to drive improved performance and deliver quality of service, continuous improvement, and innovation.

Build and maintain key relationships across the department and with external stakeholders:

• Develop and own relationships, building a detailed knowledge of stakeholder needs to deliver value through sourcing and contract management activities.
• Provide commercial insight across the department to support the achievement of value for money, whilst driving social benefit aligned to the departments priorities.
• Build key relationships with external stakeholders, working closely with OGDs to share knowledge and expertise.