Deputy Director - Partnerships

Job summary

Full candidate pack is attached at the end of this advert.

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Are you passionate about making savings, delivering benefits and driving value for our nation?
Would you like a Senior leadership role for CCS working with Buying Organisations and Customers transforming the service CCS offers?
Do you want to be responsible for creating new service channels and managing partnerships for CCS, driving savings, benefits and values to our customers?
The team works across the end to end process of establishing partnerships, employing a multi-disciplinary and collaborative approach, providing assurance through good governance, as well as exploring and validating strategies through to implementation.
The team exists in a pivotal position between CCS’ commercial teams, the Customer Experience Directorate, customers and its external partners.

Job Summary

The Deputy Director for Partnerships is responsible for leading and overseeing the strategy, governance and delivery of partnership agreements across the enterprise in support of the CCS business plan. The Deputy Director for Partnerships oversees a partnerships portfolio of over £5bn public sector spend per annum.

This role is critical to driving further value to customers from an ecosystem of partnerships and for bringing on board new and innovative partnerships, helping deliver more simpler, faster and better services for our customers across the public sector.

Job description

Strategy & Growth

• Portfolio Leadership: Direct the strategy and expansion of a £5bn+ public sector partnerships portfolio, identifying innovative opportunities to drive growth and customer value.

• Strategic Intelligence: Partner with Commercial and Intelligence teams to utilise market sizing and customer insights, ensuring partnership priorities align with CCS’s "go-to-market" goals.

• Centre of Excellence: Lead the Partnerships ‘Centre of Excellence,’ setting the standards for how partnerships are assessed, implemented, and monitored across their entire lifecycle.

Governance & Operations

• Board Leadership: Chair/Lead the CCS Partnerships Board, working with Executive Sponsors to set formal direction and ensure robust decision-making.

• Operational Excellence: Oversee the end-to-end governance process, ensuring all agreements meet rigorous legal, financial, and ROI standards with clear KPIs.

• Cross-Functional Alignment: Define "ways of working" with Commercial, Legal, Finance, and Policy teams to ensure partnership processes are efficient, auditable, and customer-centric.

External Influence & Leadership

• Senior Stakeholder Engagement: Act as the senior relationship owner and escalation point for key partners, including Director Generals and CEOs across the Public Sector.

• Market Representation: Represent CCS at industry forums and senior networks, positioning the organisation as a market-shaping, collaborative leader.

• Team Development: Lead and coach a high-performing team of commercial professionals, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and professional growth.

• Strategic Counsel: Serve as a trusted advisor to the Executive Committee and Senior Leadership Team (SLT) on all matters regarding the procurement landscape and partnership landscape.

Person specification

Essential Criteria (to be assessed at application stage):

• Strategic Leadership: Proven track record of being a team player and leading high-performing teams to execute complex, commercially astute partnership strategies at pace.

• Executive Influence: Assertive collaborator with Politically savvy with the credibility to provide expert counsel to Ministers, Senior Civil Servants, and Executive-level stakeholders.

• Governance & Process Design: Experience designing and overseeing robust governance frameworks and operational "ways of working" within a complex stakeholder landscape.

• Commercial Decision-Making: Significant experience in strategic decision-making regarding partnership models, market entry, and large-scale commercial deployment.

• People Development: Demonstrated success in mentoring and developing professional capability across a team while maintaining a rigorous focus on delivery.

Behaviours

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

• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Working Together
• Making Effective Decisions
• Changing and Improving

Technical skills

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

• Commercial acumen

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £81,000, Crown Commercial Service contributes £23,465 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

What we will offer you, here are some of the benefits you can expect:

• Competitive salary

• Generous pension scheme

• A discretionary non-contractual performance related bonus

• Working remotely in addition to working in advertised office location

• Minimum 25 days annual leave to a maximum service related 30 days excluding bank holidays

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 and theCivil Service D&I Strategy.

We want to make our recruitment process accessible to everyone, so if there is any way that we can support you, please contact recruitment@crowncommercial.gov.uk

Working flexibly, delivering outcomes

CCS is a flexible business with a smarter working model where our colleagues benefit from a mix of home and office working. Successful candidates are expected to work from one of the office locations listed. Our current office attendance approach requires a minimum of 26 days per quarter (approx 2 days per week, which may be subject to change) in CCS office locations or off site meetings with suppliers, customers, partners, networking / industry events. This is pro rata for those who work part time. Our smarter working principles mean that our people have the advantage of both office and offsite based collaboration and learning, as well as working from home. This way of working allows us to honour our commitment to being a responsible business, offer flexibility and better work life balance as well as ensuring we deliver our business with confidence and in accordance with our CCS values.

CCS operates a smarter working model combining home and office work. Successful candidates must work from a listed office, with a current minimum requirement of 26 days per quarter (approx. 2 days per week, pro-rata for part-time) in a CCS office or off-site for meetings/events. This flexible approach supports collaboration, learning, and better work-life balance while aligning with business values and responsibilities.

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 ourcandidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

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 Behaviours and Technical skills.

Assessment

Shortlisted candidates will complete staff engagement exercise. These assessments are not pass/fail; instead, they provide insights to help the panel explore specific areas during your interview.

For more information, read the gatenby sanderson assessment types.

Shortlisted candidates will also be expected to prepare a presentation. The title of this will be provided approx 1 week before the interview.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist 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.

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.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 : The recruitment team
• Email : recruitment@crowncommercial.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : recruitment@crowncommercial.gov.uk

Further information

Complaints procedure

Our recruitment processes are underpinned by the principle of selection for appointment on merit on the basis of fair and open competition as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles details of which can be found at http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles, and you wish to make a complaint, you should contact recruitment@crowncommercial.gov.uk in the first instance.

If you remain unsatisfied with the response you receive you can then contact the Civil Service Commission at info@csc.gov.uk

Attachments

7961-26 Deputy Director - Partnerships Candidate pack_V5a (1) Opens in new window (pdf, 1957kB)