About Us:

The Council provides a wide range of services that support and benefit our residents. We are committed to Putting Communities First, showing Respect, Integrity and Working Together to help make every team’s work a success. We daily attract hundreds of visitors to our famous sights including our museums, Royal Albert Hall, Portobello Road and Kensington Palace.

We are passionate about delivering high quality public service to our residents including those who are most vulnerable. We aim for excellence in all our services to benefit the community we serve.

The Role:

Working as part of the Council’s Procurement Service Team you will be responsible for providing support to those leading procurement activities, assist with contract execution, or small procurement projects, where you will be given support and mentoring. You will gain exposure to a modern and effective procurement service how it supports residents, communities and businesses in delivery of best value and ensuring compliance with internal governance, public contract regulations (PCR) 2015 as well as contract law.

You will learn about systems and requirements needed to support an effective procurement service, as well as working as an analyst on undertaking spend analysis, identifying opportunities for savings and opportunities across the procurement project pipeline as well as through contract management.

For more information on the role, please see the Job Description

About You:

Candidates will have achieved a pass in English and Maths at Level 1 or above, GCSEs or equivalent. 

They will be:

• Able to demonstrate our values and behaviours (please see below) 
• Willing to learn and master any knowledge, skills or system required for your work 
• Able to build and maintain positive relationships within the team and across the organisation: Demonstrate ability to influence and challenge appropriately
• Able to communicate well both in writing and orally
• Able to work well with a range of internal and external people including our customers; identify and/or resolve issues for customers and appropriately signpost them to assistance
• Able to work productively and collaboratively with others in different kinds of teams
• Be proactive and enjoy coming up with new ideas and better ways of doing things

Role Requirements:

As a Procurement Apprentice you will:

• Contribute to the procurement service, by supporting officers working on larger, more complex procurements, through completing administrative, clerical, analytical tasks as required
• Developing your capability through working as an analysis on spend and market analysis under supervision to support senior officers
• Developing your capability by becoming a subject matter expert on the e-procurement system and supporting filing and record keeping
• Developing your capability through directly leading smaller projects, under supervision
• Developing your capability through providing support of the procurement service (such as working with systems, executing contracts, revising frameworks to support procurement activity or supporting procurement activities or writing reports, providing advice and support)
• Participate, and manage meetings, take minutes and capture follow up actions with officers and suppliers
• Communicate with stakeholders throughout the Council, acting as an advocate for procurement
• Undertake analysis or work with data in excel and other Microsoft packages
• Plan your own work, including delivering small projects
• Actively learn to understand the 'machinery of local government' and how public money is spent
• Understand how social, economic and environmental factors are considered in procurement
• Work towards obtaining a professional qualification.

We work in partnership with Hampshire County Council (HCC) who deliver many transactional services on our behalf. Although most communications will be from HCC, all selection and appointment decisions will be made by RBKC. Certain services are shared across more than one Council area to nearby neighbouring Authorities. This enhances delivery and reduces costs. Your recruitment information will advise if your remit extends beyond RBKC.

We will primarily contact candidates by e-mail throughout the recruitment process, please monitor your email junk / spam folder as our system generated emails may be allocated to these folders by your email settings.

We engage our staff with a variety of learning types including face-to-face and virtual learning because we want to ensure our staff understand our values and behaviours, grow their skills and develop their careers.

We are committed to promoting equality and respecting diversity and welcome applications from all sections of the community.

We are a Disability Confident Employer – committed to ensuring that our recruitment and selection process is inclusive and accessible.