Associate Commercial Practitioner

The ONS operates a flexible hybrid working model across the UK, with colleagues linked to one of our contractual locations working between office and remote throughout the week. The locations for this role are Newport and Titchfield (Fareham). All colleagues are required to work from their contractually allocated site for at least 40% of their working time. The induction process for the role will be conducted in person.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social, and demographic topics. These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution, and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime, and migration.

On behalf of ONS, Commercial Services deliver all procurement and contract management activity within the organisation and are looking to appoint an Associate Commercial Practitioner. In this role you will have an opportunity to support the Commercial Director in delivering the Commercial vision of being a key partner in strategic business decision making, adding value through innovation, collaboration, and shared sense of purpose.

You will have responsibility for providing commercial support to ONS stakeholders that enables business goals through market knowledge, effective communication, and teamwork. You will contribute to the aim of delivering value for money through innovation, cost reduction and efficiencies, with fairness, transparency, sustainability, and diversity woven into everything we do. Commercial Services sits in the Finance Planning and Performance (FPP) Directorate.

The Government Commercial Function defines how all government departments should operate commercially to guarantee consistency of commercial behaviours and purchasing across government. Commercial Services uses their standards, benchmarks and training materials for staff involved in procurement and contract management to make sure best practice is followed. The strategic aim is securing optimum value for ONS through delivery of Commercial excellence.

In this role you will work collaboratively with colleagues from within Commercial Services and stakeholders from across the business to ascertain demand and manage and deliver effective commercial activity – in line with the new step-change approach to Commercial activity delivery within ONS. You will be expected to ensure delivery compliance whilst driving the successful application of quality and Value for Money (VfM).

The post holder will also be accountable for ensuring complete end to end Commercial activity from pre-sourcing to contract management and the successful development and ongoing management of a comprehensive Commercial pipeline of work for their area of responsibility.

Role Responsibilities:

• Ensuring compliant end to end delivery of commercial activity including pre-market engagement and route to market analysis, ITT pack development, contract management and contract exit for low complexity procurements.
• Maintaining good relationships with a range of internal and external stakeholders.
• Supporting the Sourcing team to deliver high volume procurements compliantly for the organisation.
• Maintaining the Commercial Pipeline to ensure consistency and an equal work allocation to the team.
• Supporting the efficiency drive in commercial by identifying Value for Money opportunities and delivering quality procurements.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

• Experience of coordinating and completing activities to agreed timescales that deliver outcomes.
• Experience of problem solving and dispute resolution.
• Experience of working to a strategy to achieve successful outcomes as part of a team.
• An awareness of actions required to support delivery of Value for Money (VfM) and efficiency.
• Experience of relationship management and working with stakeholders (at all levels) demonstrating effective communication skills (verbal and written).

Behaviours

We will assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service
• Working Together

At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.

If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.

If you are invited to interview, please be aware the use of AI tools is prohibited and any suspected use may result in the termination of your interview and subsequent withdrawal from the campaign.

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard checks.

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)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020

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.