Contract Manager

The Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) brings together the free services previously delivered by the Money Advice Service, The Pensions Advisory Service and Pension Wise. We are an Arms-Length organisation, sponsored by the Department for Work and Pensions, with a joint commitment to ensuring that people have access and guidance to the information they need to make effective financial decisions over their lifetime. The Money & Debt Operations Team are responsible for the provision of free debt advice throughout England through the management of a portfolio of £75m (pa) contracts and grants with third party providers.

The role

• The effective management of a portfolio of contracts and grants (some in excess of £20m pa) across England, monitoring of these against budget and ensuring providers deliver against all business plan and strategic objectives including meeting forecast targets for helping customers.
• To achieve high levels of supplier satisfaction with the standard of relationship management delivered by the delivery team.
• To continually improve commissioned debt advice services by supporting the identification and leveraging of new opportunities to grow services to meet customer needs.
• To ensure services deliver the best advice possible (at a time that is appropriate and convenient).
• To support the commissioning value stream (the end-to-end business process for commissioning) for debt advice working within a matrix environment.
• Responsible for maintaining and adherence to Contract Management Plans for services in their portfolio. The majority of contracts and grants attracting the highest level of Government classification (Gold).

Key accountabilities

• Provide effective day to day management of debt advice agreements (contracts or grants) ensuring providers deliver against budget, forecasts, and all business plan objectives.
• Manage relationships with existing supply chains ensuring efficient achievement of agreed objectives and acting as MaPS primary representative with that organisation.
• Manage spend in line with budget, minimising variance and capturing financials in a compliant manner. Ensure timely and accurate payment aligned with agreement schedules.
• Managing monthly, quarterly, and annual review cycles. Analysing and reporting on performance against targets.
• Managing mobilisation of new contracts/grants and exit management of contracts/grants.
• Support the Senior Contract Manager in delivering strategic responsibilities that support all grants and contracts.
• Support market engagement and business development activity to ensure a healthy and competitive market of suppliers and potential suppliers.
• Contribute to an evidence-based approach to service design and the translation of these user-requirements into service specifications.
• Co-ordinate the approach to commissioning services acting as part of an intelligent client function including working collaboratively with Commercial, Finance and other business areas in the in the development of tenders, corporate governance, tender process management, evaluation of bids, mobilisation, and decommissioning.
• Share learnings, evidence, and best practice from funded projects across the debt advice landscape.
• Support identification of new processes and procedures to ensure continued process improvement, driving best practice contract/grant management.
• Participate in external steering groups where required.
• To be the key point for operational contact with the debt organisations MaPS commissions services from.
• Analysis of data and evidence from various sources/activities including co-design, current supplier performance, horizon scanning, internal/external research, market evaluation, process performance, service evaluation, profiling, etc. Identifying any gaps in available evidence and supporting the bridging of these gaps as appropriate.
• Undertake impact assessments on service proposals and provision as appropriate.
• Development and management of relationships with current and future providers and to build partnerships across services and sector.
• Contributing to cross-team project work and knowledge sharing.
• Contribute to organisational stakeholder engagement planning.
• Ensuring contractual compliance and service delivery in-line with organisational and other standards.

Skills & experience

• Excellent relationship management ability and experience of leading successful paid for partnerships to achieve target outcomes at the right quality.
• Ability to manage large complex and diverse portfolios of services over large geographical areas.
• Strong financial and performance management skills.
• Exceptional influencing and negotiation skills, able to challenge constructively and drive fundamental shifts in existing beliefs and behaviours to deliver positive change.
• Experience of change management within a supply chain context.
• Strong analytical skills with an understanding of the important drivers of advice quality, financial performance and customer outcomes.
• Strong stakeholder management, with expertise in influencing senior level stakeholders, both internally and externally.
• Ability to lead complex meetings and confidently work with internal and external colleagues and senior stakeholders to generate and develop solutions.
• Skilled at identifying opportunities for improvement and efficiencies, and at implementing processes that promote productivity and quality.
• Strong IT and Project Management skills.
• Ability to manage risks and issues, ensuring these inform/influence decision making.
• An understanding of contractual change control, including the associated impacts.
• Working knowledge of contract and performance levers for contract maximisation and benefit realisation.
• If not already attained the post holder would be expected to achieve the Government Commercial College, Contract Management Foundation level within two months of starting with progression on to Practitioner and Expert levels.