Job Purpose Summary

NatureScot is offering an exciting opportunity to work and learn on the job. It is a development role aimed at those starting out or in the early/next stages of their Procurement career. You will gain a variety of skills and on the job experience within the role and Procurement team.

The procurement function supports the organisation’s purchasers to provide the best value for money to the organisation. It does this by, ensuring compliance with procurement regulations, enabling the delivery of high quality services at an affordable price. Our team support our employees use to adopt good procurement principles, such as sustainability, equality, ethical practices, fairness, openness and transparency across all procurement activities.

This role sits within the Finance, Planning and Performance unit. In this Procurement Support Officer role, you will be part of the Procurement Team, a team of 4 which provides procurement services to the organisation. The role includes supporting the procurement team and associated procurement processes.

The modern apprenticeship will be based on the work you do day to day and is equivalent to the Level 3 SVQ (Scottish Vocational Qualification) (SCQF Level 6) in Procurement.

The apprentice will have a learning plan agreed with their line manager and assessor. They are required to complete a series of mandatory and optional modules. Each module is evidence based and apprentices need to demonstrate they have sufficient on the ground experience and associated learning to complete each module.

The range of activities/tasks in the procurement team can be varied and will therefore require some understanding of office routines and public sector procurement practices. As a consequence, some planning and organising of own workload is required to ensure that workflow is maintained. The nature of planning and organising in this role is essentially around timing and sequencing of assigned activities/tasks i.e. working out the most effective way in which to carry out particular activities/tasks or make sure the deadline is met.

The post may require some time to be office based within one of the NatureScot offices. NatureScot supports home and remote working and it is likely that new starts will be working from the relevant office at the beginning of their contract, thereafter there is the potential to work some of the time from home.

Nature is vital to all of us in Scotland. The more diverse NatureScot is, the better we will be in connecting everyone with nature. We particularly encourage applications from people from Minority Ethnic (ME) backgrounds and people with a disability.

You can find out more information about our placements and NatureScot on our website .

Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities

Tendering & Letting Contracts – Support Procurement Officers with duties relating to tendering and letting regulated contracts.

Procurement Advice - provide in a timely and efficient manner procurement advice, guidance and support to internal customers for low and medium risk procurements.

Financial Transactional Processing - using NatureScot’s ePurchasing system (Fusion) undertake the following activities in a timely manner:

Fusion Requisitions - compliance check electronic requisitions and generate purchase orders using Fusion.

Fusion Procurement - provide a helpdesk service to internal customers in a timely and efficient manner this includes providing support, guidance and advice. Participate in any testing of Fusion that may be required from time to time.

Housekeeping – provide cover during periods of absence relative to housekeeping activities. Housekeeping activities include creating and issuing housekeeping reports within the required timescales etc.

Compliance Checking Purchase Orders – provide cover during periods of absence relative to retrospective compliance checking of purchase orders within the required timescales.

Collaborative & Internal Frameworks & Contracts – oversee and look after various internal and external contracts/frameworks i.e. Utilities, Franking Machines, Stationery and Paper etc.
General Administration Activities – Activities include, but not limited to: Procurement & Contract Advertising Mailboxes - monitoring and responding to queries received in the Procurement and Contract Advertising e-mail boxes.

Providing general administrative support to the Procurement Officers relative to tendering exercises

Support and contribute to the maintenance of procurement related templates, guidance documents, processes and internal systems.

Support Procurement Officer with collating spend data and submitting into the Scottish Government Information Hub.

Skills (Please refer to these in your Supporting Statement identifying which specific skills areas you are bringing to the role)

Please include in your supporting statement demonstrable examples of how you meet the key areas of responsibility, the requirement of the role and the key skill requirements as described in the job description.

Provide details of any previous experience of working as part of a team, ideally in an office/administrative role, or in a public sector purchasing environment, for example, but not limited to, any involvement with the tendering (requesting quotations etc.) and letting of contracts.
Demonstrate experience of good accuracy and attention to detail with both numeracy and written communications and working to tight deadlines. Ability to be flexible and adaptable in response to changing priorities.
Demonstrate experience of using relevant IT systems i.e. email, MS Word, Excel, Microsoft Teams and ability to learn other systems quickly;
Demonstrate good interpersonal skills that contribute to collaborative / team working and customer orientated service provision.
Demonstrate ability to effectively plan and prioritise your study and manage a varied workload, including dealing with changing priorities. Good organisational and time management skills. A good sense of responsibility, effort and commitment.
Demonstrate ability to use one’s own initiative for problem solving etc.

Development opportunities NatureScot offer you:

Completion of the learning related to the Apprenticeship and NatureScot mandatory learning.
Additional learning related to working in the specific post.
Learning will be offered in a number of different ways, on the job, coaching and / or mentoring, webinars formal training, etc.

Eligibility

An apprentice must:

Be ready to undertake a Modern Apprenticeship, acquiring the broad range of skills, knowledge and understanding required;
Be prepared to attend off-the-job training;
Show an interest in NatureScot;
Have a positive attitude towards learning.

Prerequisites Required:

Candidates must have:

Good standard of formal education, e.g. SVQ2 or National 5, or relevant work experience.
Eligible to live and work in the UK and resident in Scotland for the duration of the job contract.
Driving licence or some other method of transport.
To undertake a Disclosure Scotland application.
Although Gaelic language is not a prerequisite it is a desirable skill in support of our commitment to our Gaelic Language Plan.

Working for NatureScot

NatureScot offers some great benefits to reward and support you whilst you are working for us. Our benefits package includes the civil service pension scheme, a generous holiday leave allowance plus flexi time, and employee discount scheme. Visit the NatureScot website for further details .

Watch our video below to see what its like working for nature:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb21KTPwMRc

NatureScot’s Net Zero commitment

Whether working at home or in an office, or travelling to meetings and site visits, as a NatureScot you will contribute to our Net Zero plan, for example through positive carbon travel choices.

Application Process

Before applying for this post;

Internal applicants should read the Self Service Guide (eRDMS A3155575)
External applicants should read the Online Job Application Guide

If you have previously applied for a vacancy with NatureScot you must remove the supporting statement from your profile, before uploading a new version.

Interviews

NatureScot is an inclusive workplace. We will share interview questions for this vacancy prior to interviews as a way of supporting neurodiversity at NatureScot.

External candidates will be invited to interview if we are unable to recruit internally

Contact details for further information on this vacancy:

Marian Brown, Procurement Manager: Phone: 01463 725083, email: marian.brown@nature.scot

For further information on the application process please contact recruitment@nature.scot

Nature is vital to us all, so it's important that NatureScot represents the people of Scotland. The more diverse our workforce is, the more effectively we can connect everyone with nature. We encourage applications from candidates of all ages and genders, people from ethnic minority groups, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQ+ community.

NatureScot

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