Crown Commercial Service - Non-Executive Director

Non-Executive Director - Crown Commercial Service

Location: Cabinet Office
Date Posted: 02/04/2021
Closing Date: 02/05/2021
£15,000 pa – 2 to 3 days/month

The Role

Led by the Non-Executive Chair, the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) Board is responsible for the oversight of the operation of CCS, with emphasis on its strategic direction, management control, and corporate governance. All Non-Executive Board Members are expected to contribute to decisions covering the strategy for the organisation and the overall direction of the business, adding value by offering counsel, advice and challenge.

We are seeking an exceptional individual to join our Board as a Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Customer Committee to ensure that CCS is properly and effectively customer-focused in all its activities. Providing scrutiny, governance and strategic leadership grounded in board / executive committee level experience, you will bring a successful track record of leadership in complex customer-focused environments. To complement our existing Board we are particularly interested in hearing from individuals who have experience in leading the growth of an organisation, by developing a strong customer centric business model (including customer segmentation) together with a track record in building the capability, and leading the successful outcomes of sales teams.*

(* Please note a person cannot be appointed as a Board Member if he or she is currently employed in the civil service of the state.)

Key responsibilities and accountabilities:

• Provide independent challenge, advice and support to the Non-Executive Chair and Executive through attendance at Board and sub-committee meetings. This Non-Executive Director role will be a member of both the Board and the Audit Committee in addition to chairing the Customer Committee.
• Support the Executive team in its leadership of the organisation, and assist the Chief Executive to develop the organisation’s capacity and capabilities to meet its future challenges and responsibilities.
• Provide independent and objective guidance to the Board and Executive team on customer strategy and business development matters.
• Ensure that the Board maintains compliance with the ‘Corporate governance in central government departments: Code of good practice’, and that personal compliance with the ‘Code of
• Conduct for Board Members of Public Bodies’ is maintained.

The time commitment for a Board member is approximately 2-3 days a month.

Person Specification

All candidates must demonstrate, in their CV and supporting letter, how they meet the following criteria, through their knowledge, skills and experience.

Skills/experience required

We are seeking to recruit an experienced non-executive Board member who can demonstrate competencies in the following areas:

• Essential:
  • The ability to provide leadership, strong corporate governance and constructive challenge to the executive.
  • Comprehensive experience at senior Board / executive committee level.
  • Skills, knowledge and experience in the areas of customer strategy, customer segmentation and business development either in the public or private sector.
  • Experience in B2G or B2B sales and driving a successful sales team.
  • An ability to develop strategy at a senior level across all areas of a business, challenge assumptions and decision-making as appropriate.
  • Strong communications and stakeholder management skills, including the ability to mentor senior executives.
• Desirable:
  • An understanding of the wider public sector, for example education, local government, health.
  • A focus on providing challenge and guidance to ensure that CCS is organised to succeed as a customer-focused, digitally enabled and commercially driven organisation.

Leadership Approach

The successful candidate should be:

• A powerful advocate of the CCS, the transformation agenda, and value of collective public procurement in the marketplace, and with key Whitehall & public sector stakeholders.
• A collegiate, supportive board member, able to provide appropriate challenge, and guidance to colleagues and the executive.
• Demonstrably aligned to the CCS and civil service diversity & inclusion strategy.
• Aligned to the values of public service.

Additional Information

CCS is the largest procurement organisation in the UK and is also a Trading Fund and Executive Agency of the Cabinet Office. Our organisation plays a vital role helping the wider public sector buy common goods and services to deliver maximum value for the taxpayer. We use our commercial expertise to help thousands of public and third sector buyers in the UK to purchase everything from locum doctors and laptops to police cars and electricity. We are proud of our contribution to the delivery of effective and efficient frontline services and you can find details on our website.

We work with over 18,000 customer organisations in the public sector and our services are provided by more than 5,000 suppliers. Our ambition is to grow the volume of spend through our deals and become a £30bn per annum organisation within the coming years. We are already in excess of £20bn today, as we continue to deliver outstanding and continuously improved commercial benefits, underpinned by excellent public procurement policy. Underpinning this will be continued investment in our capability, ensuring fully engaged and motivated staff and driving our digitisation and transformation plans to make it simple and easy for customers to access and consume our products and services.

A briefing pack for applicants is available to view or download at: www.rraresponses.com

How to Apply

Russell Reynolds Associates (RRA) has been appointed to support this recruitment. Shortlisting of candidates will involve the assessment of information provided in the application documentation.

Application Instructions

The closing date for applications is 23:59 on 2nd May 2021.

Please submit your full application by email to [email protected] . Please quote the role title and assignment code P2012-047L in the subject heading of the email. All applications will be acknowledged.

All applications must include the following:

• A Curriculum Vitae with your education, professional qualifications and full employment history
• An accompanying Supporting Letter (maximum 2 A4 pages) – setting out your suitability for the role and how you meet the essential and desirable skills set out in the person specification – please ensure your full name is clearly noted at the top of your letter.
• Diversity monitoring form (Google) you do not need to have a Google account to complete the form – any information you provide in Section A will not be used as part of the selection process and will not be seen by the interview panel. The form now includes questions about disability. Information to help answer these questions can be found on the Public Appointments website. If you experience problems accessing the monitoring form please contact [email protected]
• Disability confident – if you want to be considered for the disability confident scheme, please complete the disability declaration form available on www.rraresponses.com and send it with your application.
• Names and contact details of two referees who may be contacted if you are shortlisted for interview

Attachments

• Crown Commercial Service Candidate Pack Non Executive Director

This post is NOT regulated by The Commissioner for Public Appointments.