Grants Hub Specialist

The Home Office works to build a safe, fair and prosperous UK. We achieve this through our work on counter-terrorism, policing, fire, crime, drugs policy, immigration and passports. The Chief Operating Officer Group works closely with the Home Office’s policy and operational commands to enable us together to deliver the department’s priorities.

The group is comprised of different teams and professional functions, including Commercial, Finance, People, Portfolio and Project Delivery, Security, Estates and Information and Digital, Data and Technology. The Home Office spends approximately £3bn each year with third party suppliers and £4bn on general grants, managed by the Commercial Directorate, a team of procurement contract management professionals and grant making professionals.

The range of goods and services acquired and grants awarded is huge and includes services to complex programmes that are unique in Europe with multi-million pound contracts as well as high value and complex grants that support the government’s 5 Missions. Grants are funding mechanisms that support the delivery of a Home Office policy objective and deliver benefits for the wider public good. Grant recipients are often charitable organisations or other public sector bodies and profit is not payable, whereas for contracts, the Home Office benefits from consumption of the goods or services procured and profit is therefore payable to the supplier.

In 2023/24, the Home Office awarded circa 1400 grant agreements to various organisations. The Commercial Grants Team supported policy teams in that process, providing vital commercial advice and ensuring processes and procedures were compliant with the Functional Standard for Grants. At the Home Office, you will have the chance to make a real and tangible positive impact on the country’s future structure, impacting lives across the UK.

The Home Office Commercial Grants team is part way through a programme of change which has recruitment across all grades. We are seeking an enthusiastic individual to work at SEO level to provide critical activities to support the delivery of Commercial’s objectives. These roles could be of interest to individuals who have worked in a commercial environment and are looking to broaden their commercial skills and grants knowledge in a central commercial function or to existing commercial staff who would enjoy taking on a new role. Should you be successful, you will receive a programme of development with the opportunity to study towards professional commercial qualifications and a grant specific learning pathway.

Responsibilities

• Acting as Commercial Lead to support Grant Holding Units (GHU) on Hub processes for Gold and Silver grant schemes.
• Providing initial advice and guidance and ensure adherence to the Grants Hub Process and governance requirements.
• Championing the functional standard for grants and associated minimum requirements across grant schemes.
• Providing high-quality commercial advice and guidance on the drafting of relevant Business cases and arrange commercial approval of the final version of Business cases via the Grants Challenge Panel or via Out of Panel approvals as appropriate.
• Ensuring that commercial risks are identified, understood and managed at all stages of the process and recorded.
• Providing a positive customer experience, understanding the different requirements of different schemes, and delivering a quality service that is responsive to feedback.
• Acting as Commercial Lead for grant competitions, ensuring that competition documents are prepared which reflect current best practice, timelines, evaluation/moderation is conducted in accordance with published criteria.
• Managing grants competitions ensuring that they are open and transparent and apply the rigour of good commercial practice.
• Reviewing all Grant Agreements to ensure they are correctly drafted prior to signature and that a signed copy is received from the GHU.
• Building and maintaining relationships with key internal and external stakeholders to develop a clear and agreed view on the needs of the business and target outcomes.
• Working with the Commercial Lead (G7) to develop strategic category or business focussed plans to address key commercial Grant challenges.
• Working with business colleagues to ensure that grants are closely monitored and all milestones are delivered as required, with funds released as appropriate.
• Providing commercial guidance to peers or senior colleagues that draws on relevant Functional Standard for Grants, procurement legislation, policy, information, supply market knowledge, and commercial experience.
• Maintaining awareness of developments in procurement policy and commercial case law.
• Working with policy teams to understand and follow grant management guidance and best practice.
• Gathering lessons learned from competitions and ensuring these are documented to inform future projects and influence improvements in commercial processes, systems and skills.

Due to the business requirements of this role, it is only available on a full-time basis.