Category/ Commercial Officer

Overview

VANRATH is assisting our client, a large Public Sector Organisation, with the recruitment of a Category/ Commercial Officer to join their team based in Belfast.

Location & Hours

Location: Can be based in any of the sites suited (Belfast, Armagh, Omagh, Ballymena).

Hours: Full time, Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm (Flexi working).

Hybrid: 2 days in office and 3 at home.

Compensation

Salary/Rate: £18.34 per hour.

Job Purpose

• To assist the Category Manager in the provision of best practice procurement and contract management services within a category area or manage a specialist area of work within Procurement Services.
• To manage the end-to-end procurement process to deliver value for money solutions for their clients.
• To organise and manage a team of category assistants providing a best practice procurement and contract management service within a category area or manage a specialist area of work within Procurement Services.
• The post holder will have supervisory responsibilities for staff organised in groups or teams as necessary and will be responsible for the day to day management of functional activities within a category area.
• Specific knowledge of the category area will be required to provide advice and guidance to line managers and school leaders and customers.
• The post holder will be required to exercise judgement or discretion within a framework of rule, practice and precedent and will be required to identify and select the most appropriate course of action from a range of options.
• Undertaking research and investigation, analysis of results and devising recommendations. The post will involve review of existing practices and identification of new solutions to operational problems including analytics of data.

Main Activities & Responsibilities

• Provide advice and guidance to clients on procurement and procurement related matters.
• Develop commercial tender and contract documentation in line with public procurement policy and best practice.
• Implement and manage procurements to deliver Value for Money solutions within the public procurement policy, legal and accountability frameworks.
• Develop appropriate sourcing, pricing and assessment strategies in specific category areas.
• Develop and implement the most efficient and effective Procure to Pay system for each contract.
• Develop procurement strategies which integrate policies in response of sustainability and continuous improvement.
• Be responsible for the delivery of procurement services in a specific category to include tender initiation, evaluation, award and contract management.
• Be responsible for the daily management of tender processes ensuring critical deadlines are met and customers obtain works and services on time.
• Implement and carry out compliance checks on the Procurement Service Quality Management System and ensure compliance for a particular procurement category.
• Verify compliance and completeness checks carried out by Category Assistants.
• Interpret and summarise all tender offers received from eTendersNI and produce a comparison of submitted tenders.
• Interpret, clarify, assess and make recommendations on any issues arising from tenders and ensure that all parties have a clear understanding of any resulting contract.
• Prepare reports for the F&GP meetings regarding the award of contracts.
• Prepare letters of award, intention to award and regret letters and quality assure letters prepared by Category Assistants.
• Participate in and contribute to continuously improve performance and design new solutions.
• Be responsible for, manage the design and production of, contract documents schedules for customers giving complete information on all contract terms and conditions.
• Contribute to the Business Plan setting, reviewing, and/or identifying performance measures and targets for the effective and efficient delivery of service.
• Collation, analysis and interpretation of spend information from numerous sources in order to identify efficiencies, procurement and contract improvements.

Qualifications & Criteria

• Hold a HNC/HND or above examination qualification and one year's demonstrable experience working in a procurement, administration or finance environment.
• OR have two year's demonstrable experience working in a procurement, administration or finance environment.
• Have one year's demonstrable experience in supervision and management of staff in a procurement, administration or finance function.
• Demonstrable experience in the use of Information Technology systems including Microsoft Office Suite, and management information systems.