Lead Commercial Relationship Manager

We work with our agencies and partners to support the transport network that helps the UK's businesses and gets people and goods travelling around the country.

The Maritime, Aviation, Security and Corporate Delivery (MARS) CRM team sits within the Group Commercial Directorate of DfT. The team consists of 7.5 staff and although the role will be anchored in MARS, all our CRM staff need to be able to work across other Grade 6-led teams in Roads (includes decarbonisation) and Rail; asset classes which makes us very agile and greatly enhances staff's development opportunities. As part of the DfT Corporate Delivery Group (which includes Expert teams in Corporate Finance, Portfolio and Finance) we deliver services to the DfT Group "Customers" as a "Mini Team" with Finance or Portfolio. The Grade 6's and the Deputy Director meet regularly to manage resource pressures and make sure staff get exposure to projects and procurements (throughout the DfT) to develop their commercial career and make their day enjoyable and interesting.

The CRM team provides end-to-end commercial and procurement advice to colleagues across the DfT "Business", Agencies and Arms-Length Bodies from buying a security research framework for all UK transport needs, to a navigation aids-maintenance vessel, search and rescue helicopters, and assisting in making submerged wrecks safe. In the wider team, MARS staff have helped buy the banking adviser to sell a major road crossing as a Regulated Asset Base offer and review options for a lorry park and customs check facility. The Deputy Director and Grade 6s are available at any time to provide a steer or lean in; you will never be asked to take major risks without support from the Deputy Director.

Our core business is procurement and we have a tailored commercial system to buy c£300m advisers per annum for DfT (technical, financial and legal). Our ethos is to get in front of the procurement and give commercial advice on the larger transaction (often with Corporate Finance) to get the procurement and whole project on a sensible trajectory. We often interact at Director and Director General level and have a Grade 7 team to reflect this. This advisory offer saves DfT a significant amount in consulting fees (a Cabinet Office priority) and CRM team easily exceed the savings target for the whole directorate each year.

Job description

Recruitment of this role will bring the team back towards a full complement of 9.5 team members. The Grade 6's are encouraged to resolve operational pressures at their level, whilst checking on overall business risk with the Deputy Director - the DfT and our SCS fully support flexible working across the directorate.

You will be expected and encouraged to lead in the development of Grade 7s and more junior staff, as we heavily focus on our talent. Personal preferences for pieces of work are accommodated where possible, and we execute a mixture of low value procurement, larger framework procurement and pure commercial advisory services (which really helps get DfT's Mega projects on a sensible course in some cases and delivers to the HS2 Stewart Review). Your workload will vary between taking the lead on more strategic projects and procurements to supporting, advising and enabling other team members on more routine work. You may need to attend Tier2 committees in the MARS space (

Our customers are varied, and although we must procure for DfTc we can provide focused, procurement and commercial advice anywhere in the group to reduce risk and get value for money - this means our staff are respected and called upon often. The Director and Deputy Director strategy and broader Corporate Delivery Group Strategy is to act as a consultancy in many cases, even to other Departments with respect to specialist assets like vessels. We focus very much on developing talent and Grade 6s (G6) and Grade 7s (G7) can participate in NISTA reviews and deputise at Senior Civil Service committees, if interested. The Deputy Director also has regular meetings with consultancies and will generally bring a G6 or a G7, to develop exposure.

Involvement with Ministers is usually led by our policy colleagues but you will sometimes find yourself briefing Ministers, Special Advisors and the most senior civil servants. CRM talent strategy is that a G7 can act up to G6 and a G6 can act up to SCS (say 10% of the time) regarding Ministerial briefings and committees, which is great for development and makes the CRM team very resilient.

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.

Person specification

The successful candidate will:

• Provide strong and visible leadership to the MARS team, DfT Group and Function. Act as a sounding board for ideas and work collaboratively with the Deputy Director (and other SCS) to design strategy. Take ownership of corporate agenda when required such as systems strategy (particularly our source to contract solution) and budgeting.
• Ensure that robust processes are in place for the commercial affairs of the MARs team including full and compliant use of the Department's procurement portal. Act as a focal point (directing G7s) for high value and/or high risk and/or contentious transactions, providing end-to-end commercial support on commercial activities ranging from 100k to multi-billion pounds procurements, leading on some of these transactions and playing a key support role on others.
• Ensure every contract signed has been through the right assurance, including consultation with senior staff prior to signature, delegations are adhered to and there has been a due diligence, with major risks points escalated to the Deputy Director.
• Provide hands on leadership to make sure the MARs team delivers exceptional performance re the Cabinet Office Transparency Agenda, such as publishing notices and redacted contracts as well as reporting accurately from Jaggaer, our procurement system.
• Manage the MARs team, consultants and other resources on a proactive basis to solve business problems, whilst letting the G7s contribute to ideas and do their job. Work collaboratively with the Rail and Roads G6s to solve resource pressures and address risks related to our portfolio of contracts (c£550m) and also general DFT project risk on our capital projects portfolio (c£21b SR 25 CDEL), transformations like GBR, Fraud and liaison with agencies.
• Assist the Deputy Director and SCS in contributing to DfT and Corporate Delivery Group strategy such as moving from project emphasis on compliance to accountability, spans of control, and DfTs vision of "Making Transport Better".
• Help the Deputy Director deliver to our own CRM mission "Provide Public Services in a Business-Like Way" and our GCO performance criteria (the same for all CRM staff and the DD), namely deliver a Professional Service, which maximises savings for the taxpayer and is on trajectory for our agreed 3-5-year future state.

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Can understand the relationship between risk transfer to a supplier and value for money and use this to develop contracted solutions. Understands the risks and benefits of different HMG delivery models (PPP, Managed Service, NEC).
• Experience of having had a leading role in complex commercial activities, with demonstrable experience across the commercial lifecycle.
• Proven ability to manage multiple high-pressure projects within tight deadlines while confidently challenging senior stakeholder decisions-ensuring all direct awards are thoroughly justified.
• Experience leading and developing a team, building confidence and capability in other team members. Understands and utilises the strengths of others to allocate work and deliver results.
• Advising on the most appropriate route to market, whether that is via an existing framework or a fully open competitive procedure.
• Experience in the development of strategies for high value/risk, critical/complex procurements and playing a leading role in the implementation and end to end delivery of these.