Category Director - Community, Mental Health and Professional Services - NHS
Job overview
North West London Procurement Services aim is to deliver best value procurement outcomes for the NHS through collaborative working Partner organisations across North West London collectively spend £1.7 billion on goods, works, and services each year.With such significant spending power, there's a huge opportunity to take procurement to the next level — driving a smart, sector-wide approach that boosts transparency, delivers value for money, and helps cut costs.
That’s where the “Stronger Together” Procurement Strategy comes in. This action plan is key to making sure our spending aligns perfectly with sector objectives, helping us deliver our priorities and make a difference. Leading this effort is North West London Procurement Shared Services.We are here to unlock greater value from procurement and opening doors to exciting new commercial opportunities for the entire sector.
A vacancy has arisen for a Category Director to have overall responsibility for management, leadership, and strategic direction of all the Community, Mental Health and Professional Services Category on behalf of the North West London Procurement Services (NWLPS), ensuring that NWL members obtain excellent customer service, best value for money and compliance with NWLPS governance.The Category Director shall be the professional lead for Category Management within their Category, providing professional leadership for the Category team.
Main duties of the job
NWL Procurement Services (“NWL PS”) is part of Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust and provides procurement and supply chain management services across all members (“NWL Members”).
The Category Director will have the overall responsibility for management, leadership, and strategic direction of all the Community, Mental Health and Professional Services. This includes the provision of expert strategic direction to NWLPS and NWL Members Community, Mental Health and Professional Services Category spend, the establishment and delivery of robust Category Strategies to enable delivery of excellent customer service and best value for money for in-scope spend.The Category Director shall ensure monitoring and measurement of performance of the Category against key areas identified in the NWL PS Procurement Strategy, including spend consolidation, innovation, value add and reduction of waste.
Integral to the role is the requirement to lead the development and subsequent delivery of an ambitious and leading-edge strategic Category plan for the Community, Mental Health and Professional Services Category. Key within this will be the requirement to direct and enable Category Management to support NWL Members and work collaboratively to contribute to the achievement of NWLPS’s strategy and plans.
Working for our organisation
Just as we care about our service user’s wellbeing, we care about yours!
We can offer you:
- A comprehensive induction into the Trust and local induction to introduce you to the role 0-19 services.
- Bespoke housing is available for key workers within central London: https://www.sharetobuy.com/
- Car lease scheme *T&C’s apply
- Flexible working options
- Annual travel card loan
- Training, support, and development in your career
To have a full look at our benefits and what it’s like working for us please go here: https://www.clch.nhs.uk/job/pay-and-benefits
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
**Please refer to job description, person specification and trust values, for outline of skills, knowledge and experience required.**
Person specification
Education/Qualification
Essential criteria- A postgraduate business or finance degree (MBA, MBL, CA) or equivalent experience.
- A technical, financial or commercial degree or equivalent experience.
- Specialist knowledge over more than one discipline / function acquired over a significant period
- Evidence of CPD
- Appropriate professional registration is desirable Programme and/or Project Management qualification or equivalent experience
Experience
Essential criteria- An in-depth knowledge of modern procurement techniques and approaches, including strategic cost management principles and strategic category management process knowledge is essential.
- Significant Senior Management experience, leading Category teams at a strategic level
- Managing staff
- Experience of complex change management
- Specific and demonstrable category experience as required for the role, including evidence of significant associated benefits realisation
- Experience of leading and being accountable for development of business plans, strategies
- Experience of having responsibility for budget setting and management
- Significant experience in line management of large teams and major activity areas
- Experience in imparting unwelcome news, e.g. where performance target have not been met, job losses, redundancy investigations
- Experience of significant organisational transformation programmes
- Experience in making a major contribution to corporate policies and strategy
- Experience of developing performance management reports; and accountability/responsibility of performance management
- Experience in being accountable for a major area of activity with autonomy to act independently, interpret National Health Service policy and strategy, and to set goals and standards for others
Skills and knowledge
Essential criteria- Acts as a strong leader and is respected by executives of stakeholder organisations
- Subject matter expertise in Category Management, and the ability to express that expertise to a range of stakeholders
- Thorough knowledge of Public Procurement Regulations and Public Contracts Regulations
Other
Essential criteria- Financially aware and comfortable undertaking complex financial analysis, including development of should cost analysis and complex business cases
- Maintains a wide network of contacts in commercial and market category
Due to the high number of applications that are received for some posts we may close this vacancy before the advertised closing date. Therefore please apply for this post as soon as you can, if you are interested and you meet the requirements of the Person Specification
Only those candidates who clearly demonstrate how they meet the person specification will be shortlisted for this job.
Interview arrangements will be communicated via email so please check your email regularly following the closing date.
At CLCH we appreciate and are proud of the diversity in the communities we serve and the workforce we employ. Applications are open and welcome to anyone, regardless of your age, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, ethnicity, religion, and disability.
We are proud to say that we follow the workforce race equality standard and 28% of our senior staff (8A and above) are from a BAME background. CLCH also has active BAME and LGBTQI networks:
Disability and Wellbeing Network (DAWN)
Race Equality Network
Rainbow Network which supports LGBTQI staff.
Each network has a champion who is an executive director at the Trust and they hold regular meetings to discuss issues and make plans to improve CLCH.
The CLCH Equal opportunities statement is on our Website Equal opportunities :: Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust (clch.nhs.uk)
"We work Flexibly"