AMS PSR

On behalf of The Ministry of Justice, we are looking for an Assistant Commercial Manager - Inside IR35 for a 6 month contract working on a Hybrid basis (2 days per week in Leeds or London office and remaining WFH)

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) priorities include improving public safety and reducing reoffending by reforming prisons, probation and youth justice, and building a justice system which makes access to justice swifter and more certain for all citizens whatever their background. Project professionals in the MoJ help to improve the government’s ability to protect the public and reduce reoffending, and to provide a more effective, transparent and responsive criminal justice system for victims and the public.

The Ministry of Justice has one of the largest and most complex spending profiles in central government. Each year we spend more than £5 billion with our suppliers and it’s our job to help coordinate the sourcing of what we need. We support the management of our contracts across the department, its agencies and non departmental public bodies.

Commercial is responsible for coordinating procurement and contract management across the MoJ, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies. Commercial is organised into category teams, each with an interesting portfolio of contracts and diverse customers and suppliers to manage. We also have systems, programme management office, supplier relationship and risk management teams who work across all areas.

Role Summary:

In this role you will be expected to contribute to delivering commercial excellence for the department, providing a customer-focused service, understanding the business need and stakeholder drivers, with the aim of becoming a trusted commercial advisor. You will also develop relationships with the department’s key and strategic suppliers, driving value for money and risk management excellence across the category.

You will be expected to support across the overall commercial life cycle. You will contribute to strategy and policy development, analyse data and use market insight to support the sourcing options, and work across the procurement process.

You will work as part of a larger team, but will be expected to work independently by prioritising and managing your own workload to deliver to deadlines and to respond to changing operational demands.

The main duties and responsibilities of the Assistant Commercial Manager would be to:

• Support development of specifications and ensure business requirements align with category strategies.
• Contribute to category strategies through analysis, research, requirements gathering, and demand forecasting.
• Track progress against category plans and carry out end-to-end strategic sourcing, including leading low-value procurements with senior support.
• Engage stakeholders to clarify requirements, offer sourcing guidance, evaluate sourcing models, and support commercial inputs for business cases.
• Provide compliant, value for money procurement services and advise on sourcing frameworks and regulations.
• Manage low–medium value contracts, including performance management, governance, risk handling, financial oversight, change control, and supplier relationship management.
• Support wider supply chain management activities, including risk analysis, supplier assurance, and implementing supplier relationship strategies.
• Handle procurement administration tasks such as change control notices, spend/data analysis, MI reporting, and maintaining procurement systems.
• Build effective internal and external stakeholder relationships, identify key suppliers, manage engagement levels, and contribute to catalogue and content management.

Essential:

• Experience within a procurement, commercial or buying role. Has a good understanding of the principles of end-to-end commercial lifecycle management.
• Experience of CCS frameworks
• Has an understanding of elementary economics factors that may determine a market shape, dynamics and models, the changes in the business needs of an organisation and is familiar with key commercial tools.
• Ability to identify and communicate cyber, personnel and physical risks and gain agreement on how they should be managed/mitigated.
• Ability to apply standards to eliminate corruption, fraud and unethical behaviour in supply chains, taking appropriate actions in the event of any alleged breach of standards.
• Ability to work as part of a team to support their performance, manage setbacks and resolve issues internally.
• Ability to communicate with stakeholders at all levels using different communication styles to articulate the benefits that have been achieved and to establish governance and relationship arrangements.

Desirable Criteria:

• Working knowledge of systems, e.g. Oracle and/or Jaggaer (Bravo)
• Awareness and understanding of public sector commercial principles and legislation
• Awareness of public sector commercial legislation including EU Rules and UK interpretations

Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas.

Disability Confident 

As a member of the Disability Confident Scheme, MOJ guarantees to interview all candidates who have a disability and who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of candidates who have a disability who meet all the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. This scheme encourages candidates with a disability and/or neurodivergence to apply. In exceptional circumstances, we may also need to apply the desirable criteria in our shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

Armed Forces Covenant

The Ministry of Justice guarantees to interview veterans or spouses / partners of military personnel who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of ex-military candidates / military spouses or partners, who meet all of the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. In exceptional circumstances, we may also need to apply the desirable criteria in our shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

In applying for this role, you acknowledge the following "this role falls in scope of the Off Payroll Working in the Public Sector legislation. Any rates of payment quoted will reflect the gross rate per day for the assignment and will be subject to appropriate taxes and statutory costs. As such the payment to the intermediary and your income resulting from this contract will be different".