Operations Manager

This is an overview of the role: The Operations Manager role sits within the Customer Excellence Unit, providing the business, contract and operational management of our 3rd Party Contracts with the Help to Buy Agents and Mortgage Administrator. The Customer Excellence team supports customers throughout their interactions with the Help to Buy programme. They are responsible for delivering fair customer outcomes and industry standard customer service through the whole customer journey from first contact to redemption. The team work across the function, liaises with other corporate services in order to provide commercial guidance to peers that draws on relevant contract management legislation, policy, information, best practice and commercial experience. You will implement and operationalize contract Management policy, guidelines, frameworks, processes and tools to ensure a standardized methodology for effectively managing contracts with mortgage administrator, Help to Buy Agents and future Team contracts. You will need to be dynamic individual in a busy and constantly evolving programme environment. You must be able to work autonomously; be able to work flexibly in a fast paced environment, delivering to tight deadlines. You will need to demonstrate leadership in looking after the best interests of customers and taxpayers. Rigorous management of third-party vendors and IT providers is critical to the role. You will also develop a culture of continuous improvement to ensure that both good and bad outcomes are identified, learned from and that appropriate changes are embedded into business as usual. The successful person will be responsible for: - Establish and use strong contract management standards and governance arrangements to manage risk on Help to Buy contracts and enable their strategic oversight. - Set clear contract management processes and governance mechanisms with defined roles and responsibilities at appropriate levels of seniority. - Put in place senior level assurance and controls in order to prevent changes from altering the strategic intent of the contract. - Act as an independent support for contract managers in determining appropriate and proportionate key performance indicators and incentives in Help to Buy contracts, making maximum use of benchmarking and performance measurement data. - Use contract tools and provisions to leverage the relationship, continually drive value for money and seek out and implement innovative ideas for improvement. In order to complete the responsibilities for this role, the successful candidate will have: - Essential Knowledge & Qualification: • Degree level qualification and/or appropriate professional contract management qualifications/ membership or equivalent experience • Highly numerate, with strong working knowledge of Microsoft applications – Excel (Advance Level), Word, Outlook and PowerPoint • Sound working knowledge of Crown Commercial Contract Standards with strong experience of contracts governance, performance management and 3rd Party engagement processes; • Experience of working in an agile or hybrid-agile/ waterfall delivery environment with an in-depth knowledge of or an improvement qualification in 6 Sigma, Lean, Kaizen. - Essential Knowledge, Skills and Experience: • Strong commercial acumen with an understanding of contract management and of what drives suppliers behaviour and knowledge of how to assess profit vs. excess profit , with an ability to use open book and audit provisions with confidence; • Strong working knowledge of contracts standards, contracting terms for supply of goods and services, and tools and processes such as Cost Management, Finance/Budget management and Sourcing; • Open and receptive to explore and use appropriate commercial structures (e.g. alliances) while remaining competent and robust in protecting the Crown’s commercial position for driving value for money; • Excellent communications skills (presentation, written and oral) with experience of presenting high quality reporting to different users in a clear and consistent manner; • Strong organisational and analytical skills with a high level of attention to detail and with an ability to identify and help deliver process improvements; • A customer centred approach to work with a high concern for order and quality and ‘right first time’ • Reliable, enthusiastic and able to work effectively in a team with proven ability to work with, influence and collaborate with senior stakeholders of all levels. • Proficient in methods of identifying and abstracting issues into problem statements and drives the resolution forward and making tactical/strategic recommendations; • Experience of working to tight deadlines, prioritising competing demands, managing ambiguity and focusing on achieving results in high pressure environments. - Desirable Knowledge, Skills and Experience: • Knowledge of the Help to Buy Equity Loan Programme and an understanding of how it works. • Proven leadership skills and ability to guide and coach all members of the programme team across all levels on best practice. • Proficient in the techniques for ensuring that full account is taken of customers' real and stated needs in the delivery of products and services, i.e. develop blueprints, process mapping. • Previous experience in implementing change management in contracts management & transformation of contract performance schedules including hands on project management approach that includes a proven track record of project / program execution. Commercial Values - Challenging constructively based on evidence. Creativity - Suggesting new ways of working and improvements to benefit our own, and our colleagues’ work. Homes England We are the Government’s national housing agency. Our role is to accelerate the pace of house-building across the country, particularly in areas where there are the most serious affordability issues – meaning people are struggling to find homes. We have the appetite, influence, expertise and resources to drive positive market change and meet the Government’s ambition to deliver 300,000 new homes a year. We are using our land, influence, funds and knowledge to increase the pace, scale and quality of new homes accelerating delivery in areas of greatest demand and helping create great places to live. Within the next few years, we will have invested over £27 billion across our programmes. To deliver against these aims we’re building a different kind of public service - join us to help make this happen. Homes England Telephone number: 0300 1234 500