Category Lead (Place) - West Sussex County Council

Butler Ross are working exclusively with West Sussex County Council to support them in the transformation of their procurement team.

About the Job:

The purpose of the role is to provide leadership across the Place category portfolio and collaborate with Directorates/Services to champion a new best practice commercial approach to external spend to deliver value for money outcomes and transform the ways services are delivered. You will develop and implement a robust category strategy for the Place category that optimises performance for the business in terms of cost, quality, delivery and responsiveness - sharing best practice guidance for the procurement of Capital, Waste and Highways across WSCC taking into consideration the full supplier lifecycle. You will manage a small team and be responsible for a category which currently spends £180M - £200M across c. 300 plus suppliers with significant spend in sub-categories of highways, construction and waste. You will lead the category team and be the primary interface with stakeholders, developing your category and procurement team and leading stakeholders in best practices.

What you'll need to succeed:

Able to demonstrate the relevant skills and experience, you will be someone that provides strong, visible, and collective leadership for staff and partners across the Council which inspires people and drives the delivery of the Council's strategic objectives. Key competency areas include: procurement technical, influencing, leading, change and stakeholder management; both internally and externally to achieve outcomes within a complex operating environment.

Required Experience & Skills

Key Skills:

• Leading and Managing: Strong project leadership and management capabilities and experience, with capacity to manage multiple large and complex projects
• Change Management: Change management and process improvement skills with direct experience in delivering/designing complex business process / organisational change
• Stakeholder Management: Strong stakeholder management skills, demonstrating ability to engage with stakeholders at multi levels, all the way through to Chief Officer level
• Strategy Setting: Experience of designing and implementing category and sourcing strategies, delivering strategies through others
• Analysis: Skilled in being able to conduct analysis on complex data sets, can direct others to conduct analysis to provide concise insights
• Negotiation: A skilled negotiator with a broad range of skill sets and ability to direct others in negotiating

Qualifications and/or experience:

• MCIPS qualified procurement professional with significant operational and strategic experience managing and leading categories
• Knowledge and experience of EU procurement processes, setting up and using Government procurement frameworks, within the Place category
• Successful experience of identifying, leading and developing a range of commercially focused service delivery models including partnering, outsourcing and other commercial solutions in a comparable environment
• Demonstrable experience of delivering total cost of ownership savings
• Significant understanding of supplier management strategies and can demonstrate the development of a supplier over time
• Demonstrate an understanding of the latest market and procurement trends within the category area of expertise
• Strong knowledge of the Highways Act and JCT agreements
• Skilled understanding of appropriate level commercials and legal cover to manage risk

Key Responsibilities

Reporting to the Head of Procurement directly, you will manage a team whilst leading the Place category. You will design and implement your category strategy through proactive leadership and management of people, programmes and projects involving multiple stakeholders and teams. You will deliver robust processes and plans, helping implement and shape a stage gate procurement process. You will lead change within your category, whilst supporting the wider transformation of the procurement department. You will play a leading role in providing procurement and commercial advice in relation to all major and complex contracts in your category. You will be responsible for managing risk and ensuring your supply base performs as contractually agreed, running regular review sessions with your identified critical suppliers. You will own and manage the end to end procurement process within your category, from cradle to grave, whilst being the subject matter expert for EU procurement compliance.