Senior Commercial Finance Manager (Qualified)

We are delighted to share that we are now hiring for a Senior Commercial Finance Manager (Qualified) to join us in Commercial Finance at Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The Commercial Finance team is a small team with a broad reach, operating across critical commercial and procurement categories and projects, providing colleagues with financial guidance and support, before and during the life of critical commercial contracts.

As a team we’re responsible for providing financial support to major procurements projects and post contract award support, which includes Open Book analysis, supplier viability analysis, payment modelling, and financial Strategy development.

The position of Senior Commercial Financial Manager will be focused largely upon Commercial Finance activity supporting different workstreams within the Commercial Directorate, currently Employment, Health, and Estates.

You’re a senior, trusted and expert voice on Commercial Finance. You’ll provide specialist and strategic Commercial Finance advice to senior decision makers and ministerial advisors.

Our team supports over £6bn of public sector tenders. We help our customers in designing payment methodology for new procurement activity, drive the financial evaluation strategy, and leading in procurement dialogue and contract negotiations.

DWP is a huge organisation, and we have a complex stakeholder network. You’ll collaborate with, and support senior stakeholders within Commercial, Operational and Policy communities. Acting as a business partner you’ll provide analytical insight and data-driven recommendations to them, with the commercial wisdom to challenge when needed, and help develop and implement our wider approach to Commercial Finance.

Career Development & Learning

Colleagues have joined us from a variety of backgrounds, sectors and specialisms; they enjoy the exposure and stretch opportunity this position provides.

Your learning, development and career growth journey doesn’t end when you join DWP. It’s just getting started. Everyone in DWP gets a guaranteed 5-days learning per year when they want to expand their accounting skills, and the reality is you’ll have access to as much learning as you want.

DWP Finance has a significant remit to implement the Government’s welfare and economic growth so there is lots of opportunity to progress.

We have a highly supportive and collaborative finance and commercial community here – you’ll be able to tap into that expertise through coaching and mentoring programmes and the collaborative nature of your work.

The roles and responsibilities for this position include, but are not restricted to:

Commercial Financial Activities

You’ll be leading a small team of accountants. You’ll standardise the approach to Commercial Finance modelling activities across DWP’s major programmes including:

• Lead and manage financial analysis and cost intelligence projects across high-value procurement activities together with assessing supplier financial viability.
• Lead and support Commercial Finance engagement with stakeholders.
• Provide specialist advice and guidance to senior stakeholder and the wider organisation - including payment models, investment, make or buy decisions, ‘should cost’, financial due diligence and contractual terms.
• Contract/In-life Management – lead and design financial analysis during tender rounds and in-life contract management, including building a new team to roll out open-book contract management.
• Payment methodology and design – working with operational colleagues to design robust and fair payment mechanisms to maximise successful outcomes, whilst managing risk and achieve value for money for the taxpayer.

Analysis

We assess the financial health of our suppliers before and during contracts, to ensure the best value for money in our programmes, whilst minimising the risk of disruption to citizen critical services.

You will be managing/delivering financial analysis to support provider financial dialogue during major procurement activity and post contract negotiations. Providing critical financial insight to deliver ministerial intent and influence senior stakeholders.

Our work feeds into contract award decisions and impacts departmental funding requirements.

You will:

• Have a high level of analytical and commercial curiosity, coupled with the enthusiasm to investigate and deliver astute financial analysis.
• Support on bid Evaluations – providing analysis and supporting during negotiations to ensure we drive the best value for money in the Departments.
• Confident in presenting your analysis to stakeholders and going beyond the numbers to deliver a compelling narrative to inform board level decisions.
• Apply financial analytical insight to programs to make evidence-based and data driven recommendations in a commercial environment.