Guidance

Contract Management - Associate Commercial Specialist

Published 8 July 2024

Job Pillar Role Component	CONTRACT AND SUPPLIER MANAGEMENT Contract Management
Commercial Professional Level	Associate Commercial Specialist (Grade 6 equivalent)
Role Summary	In this role you will contribute to delivering commercial excellence for your department by leading contract management activity for one (or more) of the organisation’s complex, high value and strategic contracts. You will be expected to use your commercial expertise to manage a team across multiple activities relating to: mobilising contracts, managing the delivery and performance of the contract, carrying out contract changes, managing risk within the contract and managing contract transition and exit. You will lead a team, building their confidence and commercial capability to drive performance and manage setbacks. The role will also require you to use your commercial expertise to identify opportunities for improvement and implement these changes at a local level by working with affected parties to identify and overcome challenges.
Key Responsibilities	Typically, the key responsibilities in this role will include (but are not limited to): ● Ensuring control of department spend and specifically critical contracts are continually analysed in order to develop and drive value adding initiatives ● Ensuring legal compliance and risk mitigation of contracts ● Managing underperformance to resolution ● Overseeing contract management governance and reporting activities such as preparing for contract commencement, justifying and controlling contract changes ● Overseeing the realisation of benefits achieved as a result of the performance management regime or change control ● Providing expert advice on relevant regulations and compliance issues ● Ensuring business continuity e.g. security of supply extends during any transition period and throughout the entire contract life, including re-procurement and closedown ● Leading transition management, exit strategy and contract renegotiations, including driving value from the use of performance metrics and success criteria ● Maintaining quality and concurrency of systems, reporting and management information ● Providing performance and day-to-day management of a team to deliver on the category and commercial strategy and contract management activity across the commercial lifecycle ● Mentoring and providing guidance to junior members of the team ● Working within a secure environment on sensitive projects as required
Essential Criteria	Contract Management: ● Has considerable experience in managing high complexity, high value contracts ● Has strong understanding of contract management and the principles of end-to-end commercial lifecycle management Commercial Focus: ● Has a strong practical understanding of market and commercial drivers as well as contract law ● Demonstrates the ability to draw conclusions from a wide range of complex data from different sources ● Has a practical understanding of the concept of ‘value for money’ and can articulate what a successful return on investment looks like for a particular project/programme Risk and Assurance Management: ● Demonstrates the ability to take calculated risks in an area of responsibility in order to implement efficient and innovative solutions ● Demonstrates the ability to conduct analysis of options, risks and margins of error to provide assurance on decisions and manage subsequent trade-offs Commercial Ethics: ● Ability to influence stakeholders to take active steps to eliminate corruption, fraud and unethical behaviour in supply chains and take appropriate action in the event of any alleged breach of standards Team Management: ● Demonstrates the ability to manage a team, understands their commercial capability and where they have development gaps and can build their confidence to deal with setbacks ● Has an understanding of the cumulative impact of implementing change in their business area to include: culture, structure, service and morale Build Relationships: ● Demonstrates strong stakeholder engagement skills with the ability to show resilience in interactions with suppliers in order to defend the department’s position ● Demonstrates the ability to present technical issues to senior stakeholders in order to help them arrive at decisions by acting in an advisory capacity
Civil Service Behaviours	Ability to show examples across all of the following behaviours for level 4 of the Success Profiles Framework: Changing and Improving: ● Encourage, recognise and share innovative ideas from a diverse range of colleagues and stakeholders. Give people space to take initiative and praise them for their creativity. Create an environment where people feel safe to challenge and know their voice will be heard. Make changes which add value and clearly articulate how changes will benefit the business. Understand and identify the role of technology in public service delivery and policy implementation. Consider the full impact of implementing changes on culture, structure, morale and the impacts on the diverse range of end users, including accessibility needs. Identify early signs that things are going wrong and respond promptly. Provide constructive challenge to senior management on change proposals Making Effective Decisions: ● Clarify your own understanding and stakeholder needs and expectations, before making decisions. Ensure decision making happens at the right level, not allowing unnecessary bureaucracy to hinder delivery. Encourage both innovative suggestions and challenge from others, to inform decision making. Analyse and accurately interpret data from various sources to support decisions. Find the best option by identifying positives, negatives, risks and implications. Present reasonable conclusions from a wide range of complex and sometimes incomplete evidence. Make decisions confidently even when details are unclear or if they prove to be unpopular Developing Self and Others: ● Prioritise and role-model continuous self-learning and development. Identify areas individuals and teams need to develop in order to achieve future objectives. Support colleagues to take responsibility for their own learning and development. Ensure that development opportunities are available for all individuals regardless of their background or desire to achieve promotion. Ensure individuals take full advantage of learning and development opportunities available to them, including workplace based learning. Encourage discussions within and between teams to learn from each other’s experiences and change organisational plans and processes accordingly Leadership: ● Promote diversity, inclusion and equality of opportunity, respecting difference and external experience. Welcome and respond to views and challenges from others, despite any conflicting pressures to ignore or give in to them. Stand by, promote or defend own and team’s actions and decisions where needed. Seek out shared interests beyond own area of responsibility, understanding the extent of the impact actions have on the organisation. Inspire and motivate teams to be fully engaged in their work and dedicated to their role
Department Context	To enhance the generic commercial role profile, additional information can be added by a department to outline the specific nature of the role. This may include: ● An additional short paragraph in the role summary ● Additional key responsibilities based on the department context ● Bespoke essential skills/experience required for the role