Commercial Disputes Lead

**Details**:
**Reference number**:

- 278183**Salary**:

- £65,500 - £73,000- GCO Pension, GCO Terms. Up to 15% performance-related-pay available on accreditation.**Job grade**:

- Grade 7- Commercial Lead**Contract type**:

- Permanent**Business area**:

- UK Health Security Agency**Type of role**:

- Commercial**Working pattern**:

- Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time, Compressed Hours**Number of jobs available**:

- 1Contents

Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location
- Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Gloucester, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NottinghamAbout the job

**Job summary**:
Building a strong Commercial Function in Government, and with it the right commercial capability, is at the heart of a far-reaching programme of Civil Service reform.

We are building a cadre of commercial talent in all Government departments; people who can manage our commercial portfolios, who can lead our most complex and novel programmes and projects, people who have the gravitas and depth of experience to work alongside our policy and operational leaders to develop innovative commercial arrangements, whether through joint ventures, outsourcing or best-in-class contracts.

We have already made significant progress through the establishment of the Government Commercial Organisation (GCO), our single employer of senior commercial talent across government. This role will sit within the GCO, but based in our UK Health Security Agency commercial team delivering departmental objectives.

**Job description**:
This fast paced and rewarding role sits within our Supplier Escalations and Disputes Team, which supports a wide range of stakeholders and business needs. We are a small, friendly and diverse team based across the UK with responsibility for dealing with Supplier Disputes. These can either be claims from suppliers disputing outstanding payments, or they can be claims that UKHSA has against suppliers, for example over-charging or failure to deliver a product or service to the correct standard.

In this exciting role, the job holder will be responsible for resolving high profile, high value disputes, reducing the amount of costs incurred by HM Treasury (HMT) and recovering sums owed from suppliers who have caused damages. Through working with a team that values support and collaboration, this role provides excellent career development opportunities. You will be given the support and coaching you need to be successful in your role with the right level of autonomy to get on with the job.

As a team we support a wide range of stakeholders and business needs, including:

- Clinical and Public Health
- Covid-19 Vaccine Unit
- Health Protection Operations
- Science
- Technology
- Testing Operations
- Without Prejudice (WP) meetings; to resolve the dispute and get the contract back on track.
- Mediations; using a third-party professional mediator to try and resolve the dispute and agree a Settlement Agreement for both parties to honour.
- Litigation; if both WP and Mediation fail, then you will work with the Government Legal Department (GLD) to either defend a case against UKHSA or bring a case against a supplier for damages.

You will advise the Commercial team on any minor supplier disputes to try and avoid these becoming formal legal disputes.

**Person specification**:
Dispute management:

- Responsibility for establishing the key facts surrounding a supplier dispute.
- Liaise with key stakeholders including Operations, Commercial, Finance, and Legal.
- Obtain all records relevant for the case.
- Review any previous legal advice with guidance from our legal partner.
- Establish a detailed timeline of events leading up to the dispute.
- Formulate a strategy to deal with the dispute and agreeing next steps with the internal stakeholder group.

Process, Policy and Risk Management:

- Maintain comprehensive audit trails for all documentation with support from the team.
- Support, implement and maintain adherence to the department’s risk management framework.
- Assess risk of the dispute, i.e. success or failure.
- Contribute to monthly reports.

Leadership:

- Responsibility for managing one team member and developing this team member for the next step in their career.
- Manage stakeholders and communicate with impact, with the ability to adapt your communication style depending upon the needs of the particular audience.
- Be trusted for dispute advice and able to put technical considerations in plain language for stakeholders.
- Build confidence in teams, encouraging them to develop and improve their Contract Management skills.

Support the team and its ongoing development.

**Technical skills**:
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

- **Manages Complexity**: Experience of managing large contracts with complex commercial structures. Experience investigating large volumes of data and extracting the key detai