After a wide-ranging career in public sector commercial roles, has there been anything which surprised you in your first six months as GCCO? And what has excited you most in the new role?
The breadth and overall scale only really hits you once you start to oversee the whole system. With around £80bn of procurement going through government departments each year, and over £300bn in the wider public sector, the range of activities and the impacts they can have on both the citizen and the market is extraordinary, and every day throws up different opportunities.
What really excites me is the opportunity we have across the commercial and grants functions to be at the forefront of the digital transformation. In particular, our role in ensuring that public services are delivered and underpinned using the latest technology advances – including effective use of AI and how we can get the market to co-design this with government.
You lead the 6,000-strong government commercial function – can you give us an idea of how the function is split between different parts of the commercial cycle?
The vast majority of our function is working on the market-shaping and procurement stages of the commercial lifecycle, working with colleagues to scope requirements and understand what the market can offer, and working on commercial strategy. This is an area where we can often make the biggest difference and we have been working hard to spend more of our time in this early design phase. The core part of our role remains the procurement phase, where we design and run market competitions and award contracts.
Finally, contract management is a team sport across HMG and commercial is one of many functions that are involved in ensuring contracts deliver. It is probably the area of biggest opportunity and we have been running an upskilling programme for contract managers for a number of years to ensure we improve in this area.
Many functions have some very specialist, little-known roles that other civil servants might not have heard about, despite their importance – which is your favourite example of this within the GCF?
I recently sat down with the commercial leadership team at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and was struck by the global scale and specialist nature of their work. Their role goes far beyond traditional procurement and has a huge focus on international development. Their work spans helping children in conflict zones to access life-saving treatment in the UK, to delivering the Integrated Security Fund, which helps prevent conflict and protect UK national security.
“The Procurement Act coming into force in February was the most significant procurement reform in a generation”
What are some of the common challenges your colleagues in the GCF face across government?
This is a time of significant global and local challenge, and public procurement can be a powerful lever for positive change. The GCF continues to react flexibly to tackle economic challenges including trade tensions and tariffs, striving to deliver efficiencies, drive innovation – especially via new digital technology – and contribute meaningfully to the government’s mission-led agenda for growth.
More specifically, the GCF is adapting to successfully deliver the major changes in procurement policy brought about by the Procurement Act 2023. This is all about continuing to upskill to understand the market, including new entrants and SMEs and how to contract successfully with them to ensure we get great outcomes.
The Procurement Act 2023 came into effect a few weeks after you started as GCCO – what has been the biggest impact of that act so far on commercial teams, and how is the GCF supporting those teams to make the most of the opportunities it offers?
The Procurement Act 2023 coming into force in February was the most significant procurement reform in a generation. The act and the government’s National Procurement Policy Statement have together established public procurement as a powerful lever in the government’s Plan for Change.
One of the key changes is the introduction of more flexibility for procurement processes. We really want to encourage commercial teams to work with the marketplace in designing procurement procedures that will improve outcomes – and we are already seeing some good practice. For example, including supplier tech-demonstration phases in the procurement; working collaboratively with bidders to define performance metrics; and including detailed negotiation stages to drive the best final outcome.
I am really pushing our teams to use this flexibility and also share this best practice across the public sector. The other area we are particularly pleased with is the focus on transparency and the introduction of the Central Digital Platform, which is our new one-stop shop for buyers and sellers to see all procurement opportunities across the public sector. This is a big step forward for SMEs in particular to see what opportunities are coming to market across all sectors.
You recently spoke to the Public Accounts Committee about the need to raise capability and capacity to support digital procurement work – can you tell us more about how you plan to build the right skills in the GCF to support digital transformation?
Whilst we already have a strong core of digital commercial experts spread across departments buying tech and digital services, we need to raise the broader digital skills across the whole function. Digital is increasingly a critical component of service and product delivery, so we need all our commercial colleagues to be confident to specify and buy in a digital environment.
The Cabinet Office and DSIT have launched the Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence as a co-funded team. This centre will lead the development of a category-based structure that more closely unifies digital and commercial skills, acting as our in-house digital experts, that will raise digital capability across the function. We will be rolling out core digital-skills courses across the function over the next few months, and then further supporting those roles that need more in-depth knowledge with an additional tranche of training in 2026.
“The relationship between the centre and departments is always a challenge of alignment and priorities”
The GCF’s last strategy, published in 2021, set out a vision of becoming the best commercial function in the UK, with work across four fronts: people; data and transparency; simplifying and improving processes; and building influence and scale. What do you see as the main successes of the GCF as it has worked on that strategy over the last few years?
I am really proud of how the function has continued to improve over this period, raising standards both at a people and process level, which we have been able to evidence against our functional standards, self-assessments and reporting metrics. We have been able to do this whilst delivering a major change in regulations with the Procurement Act and a huge portfolio of procurement programmes that has increased year on year. Our continuous improvement culture has been a big part of our success, which has underpinned the strategy and is something I am keen to continue as I lead the GCF forward.
You were the MoD’s commercial director general when the strategy came out – what challenges did you perceive from the perspective of a departmental leader? And how do you hope to address those challenges now you are in a central role?
The relationship between the centre and departments is always a challenge of alignment and priorities. A practical example from my experience is the regular ask for data and reporting, often without a clear explanation of why and what it will be used for, which was often a challenge to prioritise alongside departmental priorities. I want to ensure that going forward, we only collect and commission data that is absolutely necessary – and then ensure that it’s clear why we are doing this and what the benefit is to all of us across our functions.
As you’re in a period of building a new strategy, there is obviously work going on to define the function’s overall priorities for the next few years – but alongside that, do you have any personal priorities for what you’d like to achieve as GCCO?
For me personally, this role is about how we lead people and set a great culture. Across the two functions, we have over 10,000 talented professionals. The most important thing to me is that people feel the commercial and grants functions are great places to work and that they have an environment and culture to develop, collaborate across departments and thrive.
This article first appeared in the autumn edition of the Civil Service World magazine