Commercial Functional Assurance, Improvement & Policy Lead

Job summary

The Cabinet Office and HM Treasury (COHMT) operate at the strategic center of the UK Government, managing a portfolio of circa £5bn to deliver critical policy outcomes. The COHMT Commercial Team’s vision is to be a top-performing function that sets the standard for excellence across the Civil Service.

The COHMT commercial team has recently undergone a strategic evolution, transitioning into a highly specialised Commercial Delivery and Operations model. The directorate comprises of two delivery clusters and a third cluster containing central strategy, performance and all enabling functions as well as non-category delivery and commercial portfolio management.

The COHMT Commercial team operates with our core values in mind which are:

We are Curious, Collaborative and Kind, we act with Integrity and are Focused on value for money.

Job description

We’re looking for a talented commercial professional to join the team and help to deliver strategic, operational and cultural change, transforming how commercial services are delivered across both departments. This will be a stretching and uniquely rewarding position.

This role sits within the central Commercial Portfolio, Enablement & Operations cluster and will have responsibility for enabling continuous improvement in commercial practices and adherence with Government Commercial Standards, helping the directorate realise its vision to be a top performing commercial function in government. The role will also lead on Directorate functional assurance, including CCIAF performance, and ensuring the team has a fully formed and executed Functional Continuous Improvement Plan, achieving intentional improvement in CCIAF and all functional performance measures. This role will be responsible for working alongside the SCS Policy Lead to deliver Commercial Policy assurance, ensuring the team are well appraised of upcoming and live commercial policy, changes are well planned and the team has fit for purpose communications, training, processes and reporting in place to ensure policy is well understood, compliance is upheld consistently and policy performance against targets is measured and consistently applied across the Directorate.

In this role, you will be required to act under your own initiative and lead and drive projects and services, engaging and influencing key stakeholders within your areas of responsibility. You will be expected to maintain strong relationships and provide advice and guidance on commercial best practice across the Commercial Directorate and wider department.

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:

• Support with the development of the commercial functional strategy for the Directorate, with a specific focus on the continuous improvement plan.
  
  
• Support the development and, where applicable, lead the implementation of the Commercial Functional Continuous Improvement plan, ensuring increased adherence to functional standards. Drive and deliver initiatives which deliver intentional improvement in all functional performance measures, including the CCIAF score.
  
  
• Work alongside the SCS Policy Lead to design and deliver Commercial Policy assurance, ensuring the team are well appraised of upcoming and live commercial policy, changes are well planned and the team has fit for purpose communications, training, processes and reporting in place to ensure policy is well understood, compliance is upheld consistently and policy performance against targets is measured and consistently applied across the Directorate.
  
  
• Support and lead the delivery of commercial improvement projects.
  
  
• Own and maintain commercial processes, procedures, guidance and tools, including ensuring regular continuous improvement updates and other relevant updates are provided on a customer-friendly intranet site for end users.
  
  
• Conduct assurance checks and implement mitigation action where necessary.
  
  
• Support GIAA and NAO audit regimes by ensuring there is a well maintained and communicated forward look of audit related activities to the broader team. Maintain a centralised view of audit outcomes and actions and ensure any actions are completed in a timely manner and embedded into team processes and documentation to ensure lasting change.
  
  
• Establish regular stakeholder engagements and ensure improvements are well tested with stakeholders, deliver the intended outcomes to drive improvements and are consistently well communicated.
  
  
• Support the establishment and operation of focused working groups in support of improved functional performance.
  
• Provide outstanding leadership, enabling effective delivery and supporting professional and personal development. Contribute to creating a great place to work, championing diversity and inclusive ways of working.

Technical skills

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

• Demonstrates the ability to analyse risks and understand margins of error in developing recommendations and making effective decisions
• Demonstrates the ability to conduct analysis of options to provide assurance on decisions
• Has excellent understanding of the principles of end-to-end commercial lifecycle management
• Demonstrates the ability to manage and build confidence in a team in order to deal with setbacks, resolve internal issues and can implement change at a local level by working with affected parties to identify and overcome challenges
• Evidence of influencing key senior stakeholders and suppliers towards commercial solutions in a complex commercial environment
• Has the ability to practically apply procurement rules and link them to the implementation of policy objectives

Benefits

As a valued employee of the Government Commercial Organisation (GCO), you will have access to all the benefits the centre has to offer; including flexible working, generous benefits, Career Coaches, Mentors, L&D, a Commercial College, active talent management and, most importantly, access to commercial projects that will far exceed the scale and complexity on offer elsewhere in the UK.

For existing Civil Servants: For full details of the impact on any move across the civil service on your existing terms and conditions, please read the candidate pack. Please note that any move across the Civil Service may have implications on your ability to continue to claim childcare vouchers.

Kindly refer to the following link for the GCF Rewards and benefits page.

https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/gcf-benefits/

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Experience and Technical skills.Your application will be reviewed by a panel and should you be successful at sift we will invite you to attend a Virtual commercial Assessment and Development Centre (VADC). The panel will review results of the VADC and determine which candidates will go through to a subsequent final panel interview.

Please be advised that the Virtual ADC is taking place on Wednesday 9th December 2026 and will require a full day's attendance.

If you are invited to attend a virtual ADC, but for any reason are unable to meet the date outlined then please get in touch with the team on commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible. The ADC is booked and paid for in advance by departments, therefore it is only in certain circumstances we are able to accommodate alternative dates.

For full details of our process, and a likely timeline, please read the attached candidate pack.

Throughout our selection process, we will make decisions about your capability to do the job, based on evidence you provide against the Technical Skills (essential criteria) and your Job History (CV) that you will be asked to provide during the application process. Further help and advice on our application and selection process can be found at this web address https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/gcf-how-to-apply/

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.

Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/artificial-intelligence-and-recruitment/
IMPORTANT: If you do not receive an acknowledgement of your application within 2 working days please contact: commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) criminal record check.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Hayley Parfitt
• Email : commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles, and you wish to make a complaint, you should direct this to the Head of Commercial Resourcing Hub at the following email commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk quoting the vacancy reference number (if applicable) and the details of your complaint. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, you can contact the Civil Service Commission via the following web page: http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/civil-service-recruitm…

Attachments

Guaranteed Interview Schemes (GIS) Opens in new window (pdf, 64kB)2026-10-19 - OFF SEN - 486841 - CL2674 - Commercial Functional Assurance, Improvement & Policy Lead - CO - Candidate Pack.docx Opens in new window (pdf, 431kB)