In November 2011 the Council’s Chief Executive launched a process to restructure the CSB, part of which resulted in the creation of a new Resources Directorate, effective the 1st May 2012. The organisation for the Resources Directorate, agreed in the early autumn of 2012, has a new division titled Commercial & Procurement, headed by a Divisional Director. The seniority of this post is to continue the momentum which the Council has created to improve procurement practices across the Council, as well as to have sufficient influence at a senior level to take the Council’s commercial capability forward. This means that the Divisional Director – Commercial & Procurement will be a part of the Corporate Leadership Group (CLG), which in itself is a major step forward in embedding commercial capability in the Council.
Commercial & Procurement – Division Strategic Objectives
These are to support, and where appropriate lead, the maximisation of the Council’s commercial opportunities throughout the supply chain. The outcome will be demonstrable best value for the Council, as measured by reduced spend, increased income and improved services.
The 6 specific objectives are to:
- Gain a greater insight and understanding of
a) objectives and strategic direction for both the Council as a whole as well as individual directorates (to allow structuring of commercial/procurement strategies to support these),
b) the Council’s likely future acquisitions through, for example, commissioning and forward plans (to allow improved planning and preparation to maximise commercial opportunities and benefits),
c) supply market developments (to help preparation for a supply base which is ready, willing and able to meet Council requirements), - Develop and implement a commercial target operating model which primarily focuses on those activities directly impacting the residents and businesses of the borough,
- Increase the effectiveness of the complete end-to-end commissioning/procurement process across Council, in particular establishing clarity of differences and overlap in the respective activities, including the use of IT to support transactional and compliant behaviours,
- Establish contract management across the Council as a distinct commercial activity to work alongside service, operational and finance expertise on all significant Council contracts,
- Introduce and implement category management across the Council,
- Create a performance management regime for the Council’s procurement process to measure best value.
The organisational principles of the Commercial & Procurement Division will be to:
- strengthen the commercial capabilities of the Council with experienced and skilled procurement professionals to build category, supplier and contract management skills that can be rapidly deployed on major projects, which are closely aligned with the goals of Council policy,
- create flexibility to ensure that specific, focused category expertise and service knowledge is available to support major commercial/procurement projects in the Council, i.e. pooling of resources as and when necessary,
- be the professional lead for all commercial/procurement activity across the Council, managing, in this capacity, all staff who are involved in such activity,
- focus on corporate policy, supply base management, procurement performance including intelligent based clienting, and commercial intelligence/analysis,
- ensure that the professional expertise of the central group will complement and support (in some cases lead) multi-disciplined category teams which will be based throughout the Council directorates,
- develop the concept of the Commercial (Procurement) Business Partner (CBP) to directly support the four key service areas Children’s and Families, Community Health and Wellbeing, Environment and Enterprise, and Resources,
- centralise all non-core purchasing though the central team, to increase effectiveness and compliance, including the selection and management of a suitable 3rd party to provide this service,
- help the Council to have a factual and evidential base of information from which value for money in our total spend can be objectively demonstrated, something which cannot be done at present
