Director Corporate Services Modernisation Programme

This role can be based in either Bristol or London, with frequent travel between both sites and other stakeholder sites.

The first responsibility of Government is to protect its citizens and in a changing world Defence must stay ahead of the evolving threats to our people, interests, and allies. At a time of unprecedented global challenge, the Integrated Review Refresh 2023 sets out the vision for a Global Britain in a more competitive age, by integrating foreign, security, defence and development policies. This role is an exciting opportunity to be central to the delivery of critical enterprise change that will enable the world class capabilities that ensure the defence and security of the UK.

In this role, you will be responsible for the successful delivery of Corporate Services Modernisation (CSM), the programme of work to modernise the shared services landscape on which Defence currently spends £1bn per year, to achieve savings in the range of 10-20% with investment in the order of £200m. Corporate Services Modernisation (CSM) will improve the working lives of the 250,000 people working across Defence by transforming how we provide and utilise HR, finance and commercial shared services across the organisation, as part of the wider cross-Government Shared Services Strategy. The role will require skilful collaboration to deliver successful business, technology and culture change.

We welcome external candidates and believe that this role would be suited for an external candidate with a private sector background.

If you’d like hear more, please click on this link to watch a brief video about the role and more information from Nina Cope.

The current responsibilities of the role include:

• Provide effective and strategic Programme Delivery leadership including setting the strategy and managing risks and issues; driving performance and monitoring delivery of clear and coherent plans, where spend, risks, assumptions, issues, dependencies, benefits realisation and milestones are effectively managed.
• Lead, shape and maintain the Corporate Services Modernisation (CSM) strategy; to set a clear and compelling direction for MOD in close collaboration with key Defence stakeholders and consistent with the wider government strategy.
• Build and lead a high performing, inclusive and multi-disciplinary team; building on the current core team of c.15 to an expected central team of over 40 and coordinating the wider CSM-related teams of several hundred, collaborating with colleagues from different professions and disciplines, including Civil Servants, military personnel and contractors.
• Lead the development and delivery of the CSM business case; building a robust and compelling overarching business case for CSM to secure funding of over £200m to deliver best value for money, achieving sign off through the Departmental approvals process and cross-Government governance.
• Develop and implement the CSM commercial strategy; leading the procurement of solutions (technology, systems, services, business change and integration support) bringing together appropriate expertise and knowledge to evaluate, select and manage the right providers.
• Lead and resolve risks, issues and conflicts across a complex and highly interdependent shared services landscape; to ensure smooth end to end process and service design and ensure that design proposals and assumptions are consistent with the CSM strategy.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with senior stakeholders; across Defence and with other central government organisations.
• Represent MOD as part of the cross Government Shared Services Strategy community.
• Build engagement and support for CSM; within MOD, across Government and externally, with world class vendors, implementation and change partners. Influence the external market, working with Commercial colleagues, in order to secure the best value for money from suppliers.
• Provide the appropriate progress reporting to the Cabinet Office.
• Chair the Steering Committee for CSM which will be accountable for taking all the necessary decisions associated with CSM.

The successful candidate must be able to demonstrate their experience and skills against the following essential criteria:

• Proven experience in programme/change leadership roles which have required you to develop a vision that drives forward the organisation’s work and its future; motivating, enabling, and empowering teams to deliver in an inclusive environment.
• Good knowledge and experience of corporate services (including Finance, HR and Commercial), shared services and Enterprise Resource Planning initiatives.
• A strong communicator with the ability to simplify and articulate technical language to influence and communicate across organisational boundaries and at all levels. With proven success in developing and maintaining excellent relationships with internal and external stakeholders, with the ability to influence, change and impact decisions through those relationships to influence senior decision makers.
• Able to maintain your own wellbeing in complex and high-pressure situations where programmes and portfolio integration has been key, whilst also ensuring that the team’s wellbeing and morale is maintained in a psychologically safe environment.
• The ability to think of, research and apply new ideas and ways of doing things, encouraging, and supporting innovation from others. With the willingness to experiment and follow ideas through to implementation.
• Excellent problem solving and decision-making skills, and ability to articulate solutions in a business context rather than by process.

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration
is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them
to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through
building your depth of expertise.

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above.
This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions.
Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and
conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your
personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any
absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you
to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.

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Job contact :

• Name : SCS Management Team
• Email : People-CivHR-SCSCandidateSupport@mod.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : People-CivHR-SCSCandidateSupport@mod.gov.uk