Professional curiosity about procurement has been transformed into applicable knowledge and skills for Briarwood School finance and business development assistant Sannah Mundy - thanks to the Department for Education (DfE) and the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS).
Sannah had already been asking about the school’s buying activity when an email arrived in her manager Jacqui Jackson’s inbox offering DfE funded access to the CIPS Digital Academy for a year.
The DfE supports a wide range of training and resources to boost the knowledge and skills of school business professionals. Find out more on our school business professionals: training and development webpage.
The pair quickly agreed this was an ideal development opportunity for Sannah and now; after completing all the modules, she can play a much bigger role in Briarwood’s procurement.
A comprehensive introduction to procurementThe CIPS Digital Academy provides online learning resources covering the full breadth of procurement practice. Accessed via a year-long membership, the platform offers structured modules, downloadable templates, videos, podcasts, think piece articles and links to wider resources.
Users undertake a training needs assessment exercise when first accessing the platform and based on their score, are directed to the most appropriate content at the right level for their existing knowledge.
“It just covered everything from people and leadership to contract negotiation to the supply chains. It was great. It was a whole overview of procurement,” Sannah said.
Sannah's access to the platform was funded by the DfE as part of its support for school business professionals and ongoing commitment to develop commercial and business capability within schools under the Maximising Value for Pupils programme.
Though not specifically focused on education, Sannah found the learning relevant and engaging.
“I've done training before online, but I didn't know what to expect, if I'm being honest,” she said. “I thought it was going to be somebody just talking at me on the screen, but it wasn't, it was so much more than that. It was really interactive.
“Actually, they made it quite fun. Once you finished a module, you would have quizzes and crosswords to do. Overall, it was a really positive experience, and it's definitely helped me with my role.”
Briarwood School is a large and vibrant special school operating across five sites in Bristol, catering for children from infant age through to sixth form, as well as a specialist provision setting.
Better planning and improved efficiencyWith around 180 contracts to manage across its sites an efficient operations and finance team is essential to keep things running smoothly. Procurement is a significant and complex part of that which had previously been largely handled by finance and business development manager Jacqui.
Being able to call upon Sannah’s support following her CIPS learning has been a huge benefit to the small but dedicated team with real benefits for the school.
“The school is growing, so we've got quite a lot of procurement coming up and it's wonderful for me to have an extra pair of hands because it can be very time consuming,” said Jacqui.
“We can just work more efficiently now. We're much more likely to get a procurement method right first time and something that's fit for purpose.
“I've only got so many hours in the day, and Sannah can assess something that's needed now and think, ‘OK, three quotes and we'll be fine for that’ or ‘No, we really need a framework, and I've spotted these three that might work’.
“And we can now work a little bit further ahead maybe than we could have done six months ago. In the past it's been a case of us probably already being past a point of need before we could get a procurement going.
“Now we can be a little bit more careful in our planning because we've got that extra capacity and I know Sannah can just start getting on with things for us and that she has very up to date knowledge.”
Building confidence and capabilitySannah too feels much more able to contribute to buying activity since undertaking the CIPS learning.
“Before doing this, my role was finance and business development. I was chasing our debt, putting through invoicing, ordering for the sites, etc. and I knew procurement was happening in the background.
“Now I feel I have a better understanding of exactly what’s involved. When Jacqui is procuring something and asks me to help, I get it. I'm not going back to her with 100 questions. I'm understanding it a lot better.
“Now, I would say, I'd be quite comfortable if she was to give me something to procure. I can say, ‘OK, I know how to go about this’. And if I don't, I can use the templates I got from the modules, mapping the processes, and see exactly what I should be doing.
“It's definitely made me a lot more confident.”
“I think the Digital Academy has definitely built Sannah’s confidence,” agrees Jacqui. “Procurement can be quite a wide-ranging topic and, although she had touched on some admin aspects of it, I think as a concept it just felt quite distant previously.
“But now I think she's got a really good understanding of how procurement works best for us as a school, what the potential is, what the different options are for us, and she's much more confident at dealing with anything and everything to do with procurement.”
seen at 14:34, 14 September in Maximising Value for Pupils (Max VP).