Senior Commercial and Procurement Officer

The Person Specification in the Job Description will be used for the purpose of shortlisting applicants. If you intend to apply for any of these positions, please refer to the criteria in the Person Specification and demonstrate how you meet these requirements from your work experience, including any voluntary work or internship, as well as through any formal or informal training undertaken.

Exciting changes are afoot at the Kent County Council. We have recently formed a new Commercial and Procurement Division, which will be driven by its mission to ensure the Council is delivering ‘best value’ for residents across £1.2b of contracted spend. By ‘best value’, we mean much more than value for money and delivering savings. We are committed to delivering wider social, environmental, and economic benefits to Kent communities and supporting the Kent economy.

We are looking for ambitious and motivated professionals to join our new Division as Senior Commercial and Procurement Officers in the People category, which covers Adult Social Care, Childrens and Young Persons, Integrated Health including Public Health and Families, Communities and Education services. The People category accounts for over £825m spend under management and Commercial and Procurement staff within this team, work to support commissioning colleagues working in a dynamic, but challenging market, where no two days are the same.

As a Senior Commercial Officer, you will be responsible for providing professional commercial and procurement expertise, advice and guidance using a risk-based approach, to assist stakeholders to plan, develop, source and manage procurement arrangements, to effectively meet organisational and business objectives.

The focus of the role will be to support the procuring and subsequent letting of all contracts to ensure compliance with the Public Contract Regulations 2015, which will be replaced in October 2024, by the Procurement Act 2023, the Healthcare Service (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023 and the Council’s Spending the Councils Money policy.

To join us, you will have achieved CIPS level 5 or a demonstrable commitment to work towards required level, and previous commercial or procurement experience either in the private or public sector. You will have an excellent work ethic, be organised and able to manage multiple projects. You will be able to demonstrate strong procurement knowledge to support clients in delivering their commercial pipeline. You will have excellent interpersonal skills, including the ability to communicate effectively and build relationships with internal stakeholders and suppliers. You will have the ability to research, analyse and interpret data/information to support development of procurement plans and category strategies. In this role, each day will offer a chance to build on your experience and skills which will help shape the future of Kent.

The Kent County Council is a fully inclusive Employer and we take our values and behaviours very seriously and are looking for employees who are equally passionate about the right values and behaviours.

This post is considered by KCC to be a customer-facing position. The Council therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act (2016) to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the Job Description/Person Specification.