Director of Commercial Services

Job responsibilities

Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for the full description for this role.

Job summary:

1. This role will provide strategic, technical and professional expertise to deliver a complex commercial and estates agenda, maximising the use of resources within your remit, setting and achieving key performance indicators and break-even budgets, and maximising outcomes through productive sustainable delivery. Responsible for corporate commercial and estates strategies and corresponding policies and procedures that drive value and efficiency through use of our supply chain and estate. Leading key areas of NHSBSA that will define delivery of our Environmental and Social Impact Goals. You will identify and successfully implement significant efficiencies across the roles remit, communicate and embed transformational policy, deliver changes and continuously improve service provision, performance and customer experience.

2. As a member of the NHSBSA Finance Commercial and Estates Directorate Senior Management Team you will strive to maintain world class levels of staff engagement across the Directorate. Leading a large, diverse workforce, you will lead, inspire and develop colleagues across a range of disciplines in continuous improvement utilising user centric design methodologies, in addition to building and maintaining effective trusted relationships with external clients and key stakeholders.

3. As NHSBSAs Director responsible for its commercial and estates professions you will develop and maintain strategies and plans to drive professional excellence including compliance with government professional standards. You will maintain effective relationships and influencing skills and responsible for leading and operationally managing the development, implementation, and improvement of your business area, including responsibility for service delivery, and relationship management of external partners specifically around complex and challenging contractual performance but also in working within the NHSBSA Partnership Key Principles relating to business, culture, and values. Promote a high-performance culture across commercial and estates teams, leading on designated Directorate and organisational wide developments which cut across both organisation and service boundaries aligned to our Strategy which you will contribute to and help shape.

4. With a forward thinking, commercially minded and collaborative approach, you will lead on maximising and optimising the performance of all services within your portfolio, define and deliver an ambitious strategy, and accountable for establishing and maintaining appropriate financial and commercial governance and controls.

Strategic Leadership

Shared accountability for supporting the overall organisation to achieve its vision and contribute to the development of the organisations strategic and annual business plans, and service plans leading and driving operational performance improvement across our services to deliver high-quality and cost-effectiveness.

Providing strategic leadership to commercial professionals who provide advice and delivery for the entire 3rd party supplier lifecycle to enable the delivery of our strategy and business plan.

Providing strategic leadership to a department of estates professionals who provide NHSBSA with a workplace that is fit for current and future business need.

Working in collaboration with colleagues from the wider organisation, to develop robust internal performance management systems which enable NHSBSA to adhere to or exceed strategic plans, standards, and targets.

Lead on strategic business planning and developing and embedding meaningful business plans and KPIs.

Delivering NHS-wide benefits and savings through embedding Government Commercial Operating Standards in NHSBSA operations and Government Property Standards.

Commercial Services and Estates Leadership

Ensure strategic alignment of service delivery, workforce planning and operational excellence and a culture of financial discipline, value for money and optimising resourcing is embedded. Champion efficiency, continuous improvement, and customer centric innovation.

Leading the NHSBSA Estates function including facilities management, to ensure our Estates Strategy delivers fit for purpose premises that meet the needs of our business, services and colleagues whilst ensuring value for money and delivery of our environmental obligations and objectives. This will include influencing and negotiating with external senior managers in the Government Property Agency (GPA), Cabinet Office and other organisations.

With annual expenditure through its supply chain more than £150m the role is responsible for designing, articulating and delivering an effective procurement service for the Chief Financial Officer and SROs including highly complex Government Major Projects and Programmes.

Ensuring Heads of Commercial and Estates provide timely reliable advice and assurance to the Accounting Officer, SROs and budget holders, often on complex and specialist topics. NHSBSA services, projects and programmes deliver best value outcomes through timely agile corporate support. Lead providing assurance to the Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officer on NHSBSAs shareholdings.

Leading on and driving business development and service improvement opportunities through commercially exploiting emerging technology, development of digital user interfaces and use of NHSBSA data in partnership with stakeholders.

Working with Head of Commercial Services to provide timely and accurate reporting of commercial activities to a range of key stakeholders.

Providing support to the Executive team and Board so that key commercial and estate risks in service or product provision by a third party are identified and understood, documented and that appropriate actions are agreed and taken to mitigate risks.

Ensuring that supplier market insight is gathered and used to inform sourcing strategy and decisions including supplier resilience. To become a supplier market expert in critical categories of spend either directly or through Heads of Service and other team members.

Ensuring NHSBSA access and develop necessary procurement tools to deploy and manage existing and emerging technology and services and, where necessary, cut new ground to meet user need of services being delivered by a rapidly developing business with complex national business processing, digital, data and technology at its heart.

Decision-Making & Continuous Improvement

This role embeds data led thinking of all levels, ensuring evidence-based decision making to drive organisation success. Use analytics and storytelling to influence strategy, improve services and enhance customer outcomes.

Continuously develop and drive service insight and other complex data to evaluate current operating model to determine changes needed within the service area whilst inspiring horizon scan for future opportunities, threats, and service improvements.

Budgetary responsibility for both NHSBSAs commercial and estates functions and keeping the Chief Financial Officer informed of any financial issues arising. Overall responsibility for the effective management and monitoring of budgets. Including prioritisation of resources and ensuring all benefits are captured and delivered.

The overseeing and accountability for information systems within the functions to ensure all reporting is accurate, timely and insightful and

supports to deliver the strategic business objectives. Ensure effective customer satisfaction measures are in place and regular insight is collected.

Make sure that all legal responsibilities related to services are followed through proper governance. Ensure your teams are well-trained and ready to handle these responsibilities as needed.

Implement a culture of service excellence within the functions, working to set, and embed the standards and behaviours needed to bring about lasting improvements in service delivery that deliver client and user satisfaction.

Transformation, Innovation & Stakeholder Influence

Lead large scale change, and transformation with vision, adaptability, and strategic foresight. Foster a culture of curiosity, challenge, and continuous improvement to drive sustainable innovation, building and leveraging influential relationships, managing complex stakeholder landscapes with political acumen.

Leading highly complex change and transformation plans, in a changing NHS System, having the necessary skills to navigate sensitive environments.

Utilising colleague engagement survey results and other appropriate channels to promote a culture of openness and support across the service ensuring that changes to service delivery are actively managed through the provision of on-going coaching, support, knowledge, and advice to team members.

Build and maintain appropriate professional relationships with key contacts within client and customer organisations; proactively communicating regularly with them to keep them engaged in operational and service delivery performance outcomes.

Proactively understand the needs and expectations of clients and work to find solutions.

Leadership level responsibilities and accountabilities:

Be a champion for equality and diversity for the organisation, actively working to create and maintain an environment that is diverse and inclusive for all.

Drawing from experience, expertise, and networks across industries, to ensure that the organisation benefits from relevant innovations, and remains future proof, and aligned to moving technology and best practice, and keep this at the forefront of all strategic plans.

Shared responsibility with other Directors for overseeing systems used throughout the organisation to ensure colleague, customer and visitor safety is compliant with governance requirements and health and safety legislation.

Personal Qualities, Knowledge and Skills

Essential

• Extensive experience of the public sector governance requirements including board and government approvals in respect of government major projects and programmes procurement and contract management
• Extensive experience sourcing and management of digital, data and technology suppliers
• Extensive experience sourcing and management of business services and BPO suppliers
• Extensive experience of sourcing and management of facilities management suppliers
• Expert knowledge of relevant government and NHS commercial standards and policies
• Leadership of Estates professionals with knowledge of relevant government and NHS estates standards and policies
• Hold "A" at Commercial Specialist level from Government Commercial Function ADC

Desirable

• Awareness of project planning and management techniques necessary for managing procurement and estates activities
• Coaching and mentoring at leadership level

Experience

Essential

• Significant knowledge of relevant provider markets (including business services, digital and technology) and demonstrable expertise in high value complex strategic sourcing
• Significant experience of building constructive working relationships with appropriate stakeholders including government and NHS commercial and suppliers including delivering commercial plans through collaboration with and through Government Commercial stakeholders
• Significant experience in managing a significant budgets
• Leading team of estates professionals who have established working relationships with appropriate stakeholders including government and NHS estates
• Management of strategic supplier contracts and relationships including embedding key drivers of service performance
• Experience of leading a Commercial and Estates functions that are delivery, customer and risk focused and meet government professional standards
• Proven £multi-million negotiation and dispute resolution experience in the Private or Public sectors
• Experience providing assurance to public body managing Shareholding interests
• Experience of deploying commercial and estates policy to make social impact (including environmental and modern slavery)

Desirable

• Previous experience working at director level in a relevant role
• Policy development and implementation

Qualifications

Essential

• Significant in-depth relevant senior leadership experience
• CIPS Qualified, or equivalent, with additional business qualification (e.g. MBA)

Personal Qualities, Knowledge and Skills

Essential

• Expert knowledge of public sector procurement standards regulations and legislation
• Uses enterprise-wide thinking to break down silos, fostering collaboration and accountability at all levels
• Senior leadership of significant changes in the use and management of the workplace and relevant compliance
• An engaging leader who inspires through providing meaningful direction empowering their team to delivery focus on customer experience and service outcomes
• Effective relationships enabling collaborative delivery of shared accountabilities working with and through partners and peers
• Champions the strategic importance of people, talent management, development and wellbeing through setting and maintaining direction, clear requirements and performance standards, building a culture of diversity and inclusion and continuous learning and improvement
• Seeing the big picture to steer day-day delivery focusing on risk and optimising outcomes for organisation, customers and taxpayer
• Excellent communication and engagement skills, ability to articulate complex situations clearly in order to influence and inform decisions
• Ability to manage multiple conflicting pressures and priorities ensuring continued focus on important longer-term plans as well as delivering current and urgent business

Desirable

• Political awareness and awareness of broader aspects which may impact on the area of expertise
• Capable of and experience of working outside normal professional and own comfort boundaries

Experience

Essential

• Extensive relevant and demonstrable experience of delivering major strategic sourcing strategies to include service outsourcing with high complexity make/buy decisions (Delivery Model Assessments) including outsourcing of public body functions
• Extensive and demonstrable experience of leading and managing teams of commercial and estates professionals and administrative staff to achieve objectives developing world class levels of staff engagement
• Significant experience of developing and implementing procurement strategy on Government Major Projects and Programmes and managing high value contracts which require rigorous specification setting, robust market-facing processes, £multi-million/billion negotiations, high profile implementation plans and complex performance management regimes
• Significant experience in managing change and being a catalyst and leader in a changing environment, harnessing others to embrace transformation
• Significant experience of motivating, enabling and empowering teams to deliver
• Experience of applying commercial standards and policy through risk management capability, transparency reporting, supplier resilience and strong knowledge of tools and techniques used to achieve robust corporate governance and quality management

Desirable

• Design and delivery of joint venture arrangements and business disposals

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).