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Procurement

About us

Procurement is a centre-led strategically focussed function which:

  • Drives commercial value from the supply chain; providing the ability for driving innovation, delivering better services and creating savings.
  • Recognises best practice, maximising the opportunities for economic, environmental and social benefits through improvements to procurement practices and outcomes. See our Responsible Procurement Policy for more information.
  • Enforces procurement policies, governance, processes and systems in order to strengthen and at the same time simplify the activities for all Colleges, Professional Services departments and suppliers.
  • Assists with the aggregation of opportunities across the University and provide the ability to operate flexibly, ensuring that all requirements meet the needs of the University now and to respond to changes in future needs.
  • Collaborates with key stakeholders to ensure that procurement rules and processes are fully adopted and teams work together towards common goals and in the best interests of the University.

Procurement team

Our team provides strategic leadership, policy and governance setting for major procurement activity, applies category management to four different categories of expenditure, and manages key strategic supplier relationships.  Our overarching principles are that:

  • Best value shall be obtained for all works, goods and services.
  • All procurements shall take place in an open and transparent manner.
  • Fairness with all potential and existing suppliers being treated equally.
  • All actions are compliant with the UK Legislation.
  • Responsible Procurement (including where possible social, economic and environmental characteristics) objectives are included in all strategic procurements.
  • SRM (Supplier Relationship Management) is being applied to all strategic suppliers in order to deliver high standards of performance, continuous improvement and innovation. 

Mission and vision 

Our mission is to deliver commercial excellence.

Our vision is to be a financially sustainable, successful and efficient organisation which is delivered through five areas of focus, our five Ps.

Five Ps

People

A dedicated team of Procurement professionals who work together using their professional expertise to apply techniques to support the University. Providing support, guidance and a consultative approach in line with current public sector legislations, they will help manage expenditure, lower risk and improve quality. Ultimately, Procurement will deliver value for money (VfM) on all categories of spend.

Process

Our team provides strategic leadership and sourcing, policy and governance setting for major procurement activity whilst managing key strategic supplier relationships. 

Our overarching principles are;

  • Best value shall be obtained for all works, goods and services.
  • All procurements shall take place in an open and transparent manner.
  • Fairness, with all potential and existing suppliers being treated equally.
  • All activities will be compliant with UK legislation.
  • Responsible Procurement, to include where possible, social, economic and environmental objectives in all strategic procurements. 

Performance

Performance can be measured in many ways and we are committed to measuring the performance of

1) Suppliers
2) Processes
3) Procurement team

Supplier performance for high value and/or critical suppliers to the University will be monitored through regular contract reviews. These will be undertaken in conjunction with Procurement and each relevant business area, with all contractual key performance indicators (KPI’s) and service level agreements (SLA’s) reviewed and monitored.

Processes such as tendering and templates used will be regularly reviewed and updated if necessary, to ensure we continue to demonstrate best practise and comply with legislative requirements.

Procurement Services will be measured on the value for money (Vfm) benefits realised, whether these are financial/budget savings, administrative efficiencies, innovation, sustainability or cost avoidance. A monthly dashboard will be available to observeand analyse past/current/future activity.

Partnerships

Procurement will work with internal stakeholders and external suppliers to forge strong relationships and working practises. We share best practise with other Higher Education institutions, with a view of potential collaboration and to improve efficiencies and performance.

We engage with other public/private sector organisations to continually raise standards, drive improvements and enhance ways of working.

Procurement will also work with existing Framework providers that have been set up to assist and execute tenders where pre-qualification has taken place and selected suppliers have had all due diligence checks completed.

Planning

Our team will proactively engage with stakeholders and through careful planning will identify goods, services and works to be procured using data from soft market analysis, spend and/or needs analysis.

Category plans will be developed in conjunction with the corporate strategy to meet the needs of each business area.

Procurement will create a pipeline of work, based on the existing contracts in place and engage with the business prior to any potential tendering work.

 

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