Procurement and Contracts Administrator

Red Kite’s Procurement and Contract Management team undertake the procuring of goods, works and services for Red Kite, working to an aggressive procurement pipeline. In addition, the team manage a number of contracts for communal services, such as cleaning, grounds maintenance, and bulk waste.

The team focus is ensuring that we are compliant with the Public Contract Regulations (to be superseded by the forthcoming Procurement Bill), maximizing savings and supporting value for money, and most importantly, ensuring our tenants receive high-quality services at all times. This role will support both areas of the team, effectively acting as a ‘pendulum’ to provide additional resource as required, whilst still having ownership and responsibility for their own duties.

What we need you to do

• Work with team colleagues and internal customers to support the procurement of new contracts at the appropriate time, in line with Red Kite’s internal governance procedures and the Public Contract Regulations as required.
• Manage the dispatch and return of tender documentation and co-ordinate responses to tender enquiries.
• Support the Procurement email inbox, ensuring that items are addressed in a timely manner and filed as necessary. You will take ownership of the inbox when required, to cover holidays, sickness, meetings etc.
• Working with the business and the Core Procurement Group, support the negotiation of contract extensions and variations to contracts.
• Ensure we build effective relationships which reflect our values of partnership, respect, and pride.
• Be flexible and respond to the changing demands of our customers and the business which may include attending evening or weekend meetings as and when required.
• Act as the team Social Value champion, ensuring that tender bid commitments are shared with our Tenant Engagement Team and opportunities are monitored and measures.
• Updating of the relevant team trackers and the central contacts database/library to ensure that progress and risk is recorded accurately.

Contract Management

• Support the Contract Management email inbox, ensuring that items are addressed in a timely manner and filed as necessary. You will take ownership of the inbox when required, to cover holidays, sickness, meetings etc.
• Support the Contract Management Officer with responding to complaints and associated queries in line with Red Kite's internal response times.
• Scheduling of Contract/Performance Reviews by other teams, ensuring that comprehensive reports are drafted in a timely manner and received back by the team in order to meet contract deadlines.
• Monitoring of supplier documents such as insurances and professional memberships/accreditation to ensure that up-to-date copies are obtained and recorded.
• Supporting the Contract Management Officer and Procurement Officer with welfare calls to members of our Core Procurement Group, arranging and attending various Core Procurement Group and Champion activities and actioning any feedback as necessary.

Where you have come from

• A business or organisation where you have had exposure to and/or supported the procurement of procured contracts, goods and services.
• A business or organisation where you have gained experience of contract management, ideally in the social housing, construction, or public sector.
• Ideally a place where you worked closely with tenants and leaseholders.
• Ideally a role where you have had experience and knowledge of different forms of contracts e.g. JCT, NEC, PPC.
• A role where you have demonstrated a strong attention to detail and have excellent IT skills, particularly MS Word and Excel.

Check out the job description and complete the application form and send it to recruitment@redkitehousing.org.uk.

Please note: We occasionally close vacancies early in the event we receive a high number of applications, so we advise you to submit an application as early as possible.

Location: Hybrid working - two days per week in the office in High Wycombe.

35-hour week pilot

From June 2024 we will be piloting a change to our normal full-time, 37-hour 5-day week. Over the next 12 months we will be piloting a shorter 35-hour week (for the same pay as before) where staff work a full day Monday to Thursday, and finish the working week at 1pm every Friday. It’s just a pilot at this stage while we evaluate its impact on our staff, our tenants, and the service we provide, but if successful we will consider a permanent move to this way of working in 2025.