About the Trust

Birmingham Children’s Trust is an exciting and diverse place to work. The Trust is the largest publicly funded social care organisation in the UK and Europe. Established in 2018, the Trust is commissioned by Birmingham City Council to deliver its statutory Social Care function to children and families. We are a not-for-profit entity with a clear focus on improving the lives of vulnerable children and families in Birmingham. Procurement has an important role to play in this by ensuring the right services are procured, at the right time, that we work with the right providers and negotiate the best prices to deliver value for money.   

Working with 1000s of suppliers and a growing portfolio of contracts, we commission a range of social care providers to provide placements for our children in care, and work in partnership with a number of other providers across the city to provide more specialist care services and wrap-around support. We recently established a unique Regional Adoption Agency following a successful competitive dialogue process, and have also completed a high value supply chain contract for agency workers to meet employment gaps in our critical business areas. There is a large demand for procurement of specialist support services and we have ambitious plans in respect of property, ICT and the expansion of in-house residential accommodation for our children in care. We are implementing modern technology to support an agile workforce and have plans for refurbishment and fit outs of our facilities to provide a better working environment for our staff. 

We need high quality procurement support to realise this ambitious agenda for children, families and our staff. The Procurement Manager and Procurement Officer roles will be integral to this agenda, Both roles will be based in our Commissioning Team to expand our procurement capacity, but will work in cross-functional teams across the Trust, interfacing with the City Council, other partners and suppliers.  

The Trust has transferred all its activities relating to Procurement To Pay (P2P), Finance and HR to a new IT system, Oracle Cloud, and expects this to deliver efficiencies in working practices, and data-driven management of suppliers.  It is also increasingly using Dynamic Purchasing Systems (DPS) to maximise capacity of supply and response times. 

To find out more about this opportunity contact us

What do we do

The Trust works with more than 10,000 children and young people in our city every day. These are some of the most disadvantaged children and young people in Birmingham and we work to keep them safe, happy and healthy. The procurement role supports the Trust by ensuring the right suppliers are in place to provide high quality services to meet needs, while delivering value for money.

We understand, too, that everyone’s needs are different. So we aim to procure services that are flexible and adaptable to meet individual needs. Sufficiency challenges - whether that be around placements, specialist support or property or IT demands - require solution-focused approaches and good supplier engagement to co-design and procure services that will effectively meet business needs.

About the roles

You will have a proven track record of delivering procurement and tendering within a public sector commercial setting. Experience of category management (e.g. Property, ICT, social care, professional services) and running small, medium and complex tenders to tight deadlines is also essential.

You will have an eye for detail and be able to effectively gather and analyse quantitative and qualitative data and use it to drive procurement activities, develop KPIs, monitor contracts and strike a balance between performance, service quality and value for money. 

An up-to-date procurement qualification e.g. CIPS is essential  - CIPs Level 6 or working towards for the Procurement Manager role, and CIPS level 4 or above for the Procurement Officer role. 

Career Development 

We recognise that your career is important to you, it's important to us too.  

Birmingham Children's Trust is a Learning Organisation where you will have supportive 1:1 supervision, professional guidance, appraisal and regular feedback on performance.  

You'll also have access to a range of learning and networking opportunities to further enhance your professional qualifications and develop the skills required for the role.

Our Offer/Benefits 

  • Competitive salary
  • Up to £6,000 relocation payment (T&Cs apply)
  • Annual Leave - 29 days paid annual leave and an additional eight bank holidays. This increases to 32 days after five years’ service, and then 34 days after ten years’ service

Additional benefits:

  • Subsidised travel passes. 
  • Childcare vouchers. 
  • Cycle to work schemes. 
  • A confidential Employee Assistance Programme. 
  • Access to an employee website offering discounts and cash back on hundreds of retailers. 
  • Car Lease Scheme (salary sacrifice) 
  • Work-life balance 
  • Generous flexi scheme, enabling you to work flexibly and helping you to balance your professional and personal commitments. 
  • Many of the Trust’s buildings now offer the ability to work across multiple sites. We are investing in ICT to improve agile working. 
  • Wellbeing programme 
  • Shared Contribution Additional Voluntary Contribution Pension Scheme

Our Vision and Focus 

  • Put children and young people at the heart of everything we do including within the context of the commissioning and procurement function  
  • Secure cost reductions and Value for Money
  • Ensure procurement activities comply with Public Procurement Regulations, adherence to governance and audit processes and ethical standards 
  • Due Diligence and Quality Assurance
  • Sufficiency and adequacy of supply 
  • Proactive pipeline of procurements
  • Market management to build and sustain good relationships with suppliers
  • Exploit opportunities to streamline and bring efficiencies through the Oracle Cloud system which brings together P2P, Finance and HR activities.