Procurement Strategy

Purpose

To assist the University in achieving its objectives by improving and advancing the consistent application of best Procurement practice across the University to achieve best value for money. The Procurement Office holds responsibility for Procurement processes across the University. This encompasses strategy, policy, procedures and adherence to legislation.

Some key areas for the Procurement Office to focus on are: -

• Raise awareness of the Procurement function to ensure legislative compliance
• To encourage Procurement involvement at the earliest stages of projects
• Implement standard procurement processes and procedures to promote best practice across the University
• Increase understanding of Sustainable Procurement as part of best practice
• Ensure appropriate contract coverage for the University's requirements, either through collaborative contracts nationally and regionally or as an individual organisation
• Developing efficient online procurement systems and processes, including eProcurement and Procurement Cards
• Monitor supplier performance and develop the supplier base
• Identify and improve communication and training for Collegiate and Departmental buyers
• Identify and implement process savings initiatives such as consolidated invoicing
• Improve data gathering and reporting
• Develop improved communication tools, including webpages and shared directories

Objectives

The Procurement Office's main objective is to positively influence non-pay expenditure in an ethical and transparent manner.

In order to achieve this, the following have been identified as key objectives: -

• To reduce costs and increase value for money when the University has requirements for goods, services and works. This includes whole life costing, consideration of sustainability of supply and legislative compliance.
• To update procurement documentation as required, particularly with regard to new legislation, the Scottish Government's Procurement Policy Handbook and the Scottish Government's Procurement Journey
• To continue Procurement training across the University
• To actively seek feedback from University end users
• To produce Procurement reports that allow analysis of expenditure, transactions and suppliers to better inform Procurement strategy and direction and make best use of resources
• To increase the level of orders going through the University's eProcurement system (Pecos)
• To increase the level of supplier content available for end users on Pecos
• To increase the use of Procurement Cards across the University
• To work with suppliers to reduce the number of invoices submitted to the University
• To actively seek collaborative partners for University contract priorities in order to maximise best value

Targets for 2011 - 2012

• To produce efficiencies of £500,000 on the University's capital expenditure
• To produce efficiencies of £150,000 on the University's non-pay, non-capital expenditure
• To publish the University's Anti-Bribery Statement within the Procurement website and to ensure adequate procedures are in place to prevent bribery within the University's procurement
• " To revise and publish the Procurement Office's Procurement Decision Flow Chart
• To revise and publish the Procurement Office's Sustainable Procurement Policy
• To hold Procurement training at least once a month
• To establish a feedback forum for University end users via the Procurement Office website
• To work with key organisations to ensure that the University can access and analyse its non-pay expenditure data as required
• To increase the number of orders going through Pecos from 41,133 to 45,000
• To increase the value of orders going through Pecos from £16,046,817 to £18,000,000
• To increase the number of Procurement Card holders on the BarclayCard programme across the University from 37 to 100
• To increase the number of electronic purchase to pay transactions from 25.26% to 29%
• To rationalise the number of suppliers available on Pecos, reducing the number of active suppliers from 1,700 to 1,000
• To increase the quality of electronic product content available on Pecos from the most frequently used suppliers, currently 148 suppliers receiving 94% of Pecos orders in volume which equates to 70% in value
• To increase the level of expenditure on Procurement cards across the university to £2.5M with a view to increasing this to £5M by 2013
• To investigate and implement a searchable Contracts database for use across the University
• Run a Meet the Buyer Event for suppliers and arrange Supplier Exhibitions for appropriate contracts, i.e. Furniture
• To work with DUSA to join the Workers Rights Consortium