Procurement Support Officer

We are seeking a Procurement Support Officer to provide high-quality support and coordination within our Category teams (the Procurement team breaks into 3 sub teams; People, Place and Resources; each relating to different aspects of supplier spend, contracts and relationships).

You will be well supported in the Category team with mentoring, coaching, training and development opportunities, and we plan to rotate roles across each of our teams to enable you full visibility of our business. So, if you are keen to start or progress a commercial career then please do read on.

About Us

As a member of the WSCC Procurement & Contract Management team, you will provide professional advice, guidance and data insights to service users and stakeholders, and high-quality support and coordination to the wider team to ensure optimal procurement outcomes.

The Opportunity

Salary: £26,409 to £27,711 per annum

Working Pattern: Full time, 37 hours per week

Location: County Hall, Chichester with hybrid working opportunities available (with a mix of office and remote working).

Interview date: w/c 03 February 2025

We are looking for a highly motivated and enthusiastic individual to provide support within our category teams, and with the full support and direction of the Category Manager to work across a variety of projects to include activities such as:

• Project coordination, setup file structure, create Atamis and maintain project data,
• Project delivery and competitive sourcing for low complexity quotation requirements and/or Dynamic Procurement Systems and Call-Off projects,
• Research and data gathering to support sourcing and contract management activities
• Procurement Board / Commercial Panel coordination and preparation - ensuring meeting decisions and actions are captured, tracked, and progressed,
• Freedom of Information, New Supplier coordination and processing,
• Reporting packs (pipeline, contract compliance).

What are we looking for?

As our successful Procurement Support Officer you will:

• Have relevant theoretical or organisational knowledge of systems, procedures and policies associated with business analysis and procurement.
• Be able to focus for lengthy periods of time to analyse statistics, word process documents, and prepare complex documents for distribution.
• Have an excellent working knowledge of a wide and varied range of software. Be comfortable organising your own workload and be able to respond to unexpected problems, such as presenting material in a different manner to suit the needs of colleagues or management.

For more information on the Key Skills as well as the Qualifications and/or experience required, please refer to the Job Description attached.

As well as adding real value to our service users and our communities, as an employer we recognise our employees are central in being able to achieve this. To recognise this we want to help support your development and provide an great place to work ensuring you can fulfil your full potential, have access to a range of benefits including:

• an excellent local government pension scheme
• generous holiday entitlement of 25 days (plus opportunity to buy additional leave)
• a range of flexible working options, depending on your job role
• maternity, paternity, dependency and adoption leave
• volunteering opportunities
• training and development opportunities, including coaching and mentoring
• a range of discounts giving our staff access to hundreds of offers; groceries, travel, cinema tickets, days out, leisure activities, high street retailers and the opportunity to save over £1,000 a year through our West Sussex Choices benefits platform (see our Staff discounts page if you are a business looking to offer a discount)
• health and wellbeing benefits including access to our Employee Assistance Programme, Mental Health First Aiders and Voluntary Health Cash Plans

For a full list of the benefits offered to you as a West Sussex County Council employee you can find them on our Rewards and Benefits page.

Further information

The reference number for this role is CRS00893.

For an informal conversation or for further information regarding the role, please contact Ben Chivers-Gibbs at [email protected]. For issues or queries regarding your application please contact [email protected].

To apply, please follow the links below upload your CV and cover letter explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV. Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. This post is subject to 3 years referencing and a health check.

Equity, inclusion and accessibility is very important to West Sussex County Council. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, as this helps us build a diverse and talented workforce, that reflects the communities we serve. We ensure our approach to recruitment is flexible and supportive to enable all applicants to be at their best and to ensure they have the best possible chance of success.

We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants that have a disability, are a veteran or are a care leaver. More information can be found on our application help page.