Core role

The Department has the following responsibilities/roles:

• to provide strategic direction on University procurement
• to liaise with Faculties and Departments to simplify the processes and to ensure value for money from limited resources
• to ensure legal compliance with EU Procurement Directives, equality legislation (as it affects procurement) and other legislation

Contact list

Procurement reports and procedures

• 2010/11 Annual Procurement Report (45Kb Adobe PDF)
• Financial Regulations - Procurement
• 4.2.1 Procurement Policy (30Kb Adobe PDF)  

Gifts and hospitality

University employees should treat with caution any offer or gift, favour or hospitality arising from their position. In general, meals may be accepted provided that they are working occasions and the apparent cost of the hospitality is reasonable. Attendance at social events and occasions is acceptable where the invitation is clearly made because of the connection with the University, although lavish hospitality should not be received. Care should be taken not to accept hospitality from the same organisation too often or without reciprocity, for example if there is a need for a follow up meeting or lunch, this should be provided by the University and not by the other party.

All gifts or hospitality in excess of £25 should be reported to the Procurement Manager where it will be recorded in the Register of Interest. Where it is not possible to refuse the gift without giving offence, the gift should be accepted on behalf of the University and either surrendered to the University itself and not kept for personal use, or bought from the University at full value.

Gifts of a nominal value such as pens and stationery may be accepted.

If you have queries relating to this please contact your Head of Department or the Procurement & Contracts Manager.

Procurement Group

The University has an internal group which meets three times a year in order to share Procurement activities across the organisation. Click here for more information (including minutes of meetings and forthcoming meeting dates).

How to order goods and services

Click here for further details on How to order goods and services.

Agresso Procurement

Agresso Procurement is web based and can be accessed from any PC or MAC within the University or via the internet. It is an integrated part of the University's finance system.

To sign onto Agresso or for further information about using the system, go to the Agresso Link page.

Legislation

EU Procurement Directives

As a publicly funded body, the University is subject to EU Procurement Directives. This means that if the University is awarding a contract in excess of the limits - see 4.3.1.1 Competitive Tendering Limits (21Kb Adobe PDF)  then the requirement has to be advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). Details of open OJEU tenders can be found at http://ted.europa.eu.

Equality legislation

The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 (RRA) and subsequent equality legislation gives public bodies a positive legal duty to eliminate discrimination and promote equality of opportunity and good race relations in providing all their functions, regardless of who is carrying them out.

For further details on procurement legislation, click here - Legislation.

Tenders

Information for suppliers can be found in the Tenders page.

All current University tenders can be downloaded from www.tenders.ac.uk.

Sustainable Procurement

Sustainability is an objective which underpins University strategy and sustainable procurement is a key activity which helps to drive this. See the Sustainable Procurement page for more information.

Please follow this link for the GREEN SAVE page which gives easy ways to become more sustainable and save money.

To recycle University equipment see the SHARE webpage here.

Training

The Procurement & Contracts Manager runs, via the HR training programmes, an introductory session entitled 'Procurement - What You Need to Know' and also 'Sustainable Procurement'. Each session runs twice a year.

The next scheduled date for 'Procurement - What You Need to Know' is Wednesday 16 November 2011 from 09.00 - 13.00 in FW013

The next scheduled date for 'Sustainable Procurement' is
Wednesday 9 November 2011 from 09.00 - 13.00 in FW013