The award winning Commercial Capability Team was formed in 2014/15 to bolster departments in improving their commercial capability. A new concept for government, we have developed a suite of capability services that central government departments and wider government bodies can access. A Commercial Recruitment Hub has been created, offering a centralised recruitment service for departments to fill commercial vacancies starting from Commercial Managers progressing up to Senior Commercial Specialists.

Over the past few years the size of the Government Commercial Organisation (GCO) has increased (expected to reach circa 1600 employees in 2023), requiring a team of HR professionals to support and partner this population.

The post holder will be working closely with very senior leaders across central government as well as highly experienced candidates, external partners, the Civil Service Commissioners and the Government’s Chief Commercial Officer (GCCO).

The recruitment team is responsible for the delivery of all delegated grade commercial recruitment across Government. The role is to lead, manage, and motivate the team, and to drive the overall strategic direction of the recruitment service. It will work alongside the Head of Senior Civil Service (SCS) Recruitment.

There will be a significant focus of the role upon leading diversity and inclusion improvement projects such as improving our approach to recruiting talent and identifying retention strategies. There is a lot of opportunity to improve our data collection/reporting and developing action plans from these. You will be expected to review all our approaches to inclusion within resourcing and work with colleagues in People Services to improve our approaches.

To be successful the post holder must be able to operate in a complex and occasionally ambiguous environment, dealing with very senior stakeholders (right up to and including the Chief Executive of the Civil Service) and must be able to provide clear guidance and exceptional service at all times.

The post holder will:

• Be a member of the Government Commercial Organisation (GCO) People Services Leadership Team and thus play a role in shaping and delivering the overall objectives of the operational team as a whole.
• Manage, motivate and lead the team to ensure successful delivery of a high quality end-to-end senior recruitment service.
• Ensure a robust policy and process exists to underpin the service, and that the team have access to the tools they need to deliver effectively.
• Drive the diversity and inclusion agenda for the GCO.
• Ensure working practices that enable delivery of accurate and reliable data to support financial forecasting and process improvement activity.
• Indirectly manage a recruitment spend of over £1m and ensure an accurate and timely process is in place to recover all costs.

Essential criteria - the successful candidate must:

• Experience of providing recruitment/diversity and inclusion expertise to client groups.
• A track record of confident and inspirational leadership, able to engage and motivate individuals to give of their best, whether direct or matrix/disperse within a commercial environment.
• Have experience of influencing very senior leaders, with the confidence to provide advice, guidance and constructive challenge when necessary.

• Have evidence of people management experience in an operational environment.
• Demonstrate significant recruitment expertise in a leadership role, ideally gained from both the private sector and the civil service.
• Be able to demonstrate change within Diversity and Inclusion with regard to having a positive impact upon recruitment and retention. Have the ability to lead and influence within this area and be a role model for behaviour change.
• Be confident analysing large volumes of data and using findings to support decision making processes.
• Evidence working in highly complex and ambiguous environments and be able to demonstrate the confidence to navigate through that complexity to achieve successful outcomes.
• Be a highly self motivated and independent leader, a strong team player but also unafraid to take the initiative.

Desirable attributes:

• Experience of providing recruitment service to multiple business areas.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, with the ability to present clear, well-structured reports and briefs.

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Changing and Improving

We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:

• Seeing the Big Picture

• Learning and development tailored to your role.
• An environment with flexible working options.
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.
• A Civil Service Pension which provides an attractive pension, benefits for dependants and average employer contributions of 27%.
• A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by one day per year up to a maximum of 30.

Job contact :

Name :
Steve Simpson
Email :
steve.simpson@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Recruitment team

Email :
cabinetofficerecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk