The post holder will be responsible for the cross-college management of all contracts issued by the college to ensure compliance to all financial regulations, legal, health & safety and procurement requirements.
This will involve the setting up and maintenance of a contracts database on the finance system, retention of all documentation, and planning on contract renewals. You will work closely with the Procurement Officer from the CPC, key budgetholders, SLT to ensure that all contracts are set up compliantly and seek legal advice and support where appropriate.
In addition, the postholder will identify, prepare and monitor grant opportunities for the college ensuring that the college reviews all grant funding opportunities and co-ordinates bid submissions to funding bodies and companies. You will work with SLT, budgetholders and Executive Director of Finance & Estates to review funding opportunities to support both capital and revenue programmes which align to college’s strategic objectives.
The post holder will contribute to maintaining effective streamlined procedures, processes, and systems when supporting contractual paperwork completion, data entry onto College systems, all while maintaining compliance.
The following list is intended to give an indication of the range of duties and responsibilities attached to the post; it does not attempt to specify all aspects of the role.
Contracts
- Be the first point of contact for the development of all new contracts, SLAs or memorandum of understanding for the college. Liaising and supporting curriculum and head of service, to develop appropriate contracts and work with the college’s legal advisors to ensure fit for purpose and compliant with all legislative requirements.
- Develop a system and process to ensure a template of key elements checked as part of developing contracts including liaising with data officer, IT, finance, procurement and curriculum and heads of service as appropriate.
- Establish a electronic database of all college contracts and work closes with Procurement Officer to ensure a complete contracts register is established and maintained of all contracts – service contracts, curriculum partnership arrangements, MoUs and SLAs are recorded and managed.
Grant Funding Opportunities
- Seek all funding opportunities, both capital and revenue, and lead and co-ordinate the bid submissions.
- Establish and manage successful funding bids and ensure relevant teams are delivering against targets set for the grant funding streams. Liaise with procurement and Assistant Director of Finance & Estates to ensure any spend is managed compliantly and within financial regulations and Procurement Act 2023.
- Working closely with internal teams such as – MIS, Finance and the Business Team.Develop a template and database of information and work closely with the Executive Director Planning, Information & Performance, to use key MIS data sources to inform bid submissions.
- Working closely with the Executive Director of Finance & Estates to ensure all funding opportunities are considered and prepare possible funding bid submissions for consideration by SLT.
- Effectively communicating to funding bodies, College staff and both curriculum and support areas of the college.
- Undertake any reasonable duties as directed by line manager.
Qualifications
Essential Criteria
-
Degree level or higher level qualification
Desirable Criteria
- Degree in Business/Finance/Management
- Contracts or Procurement professional qualification
How Identified: Application
Experience
Essential Criteria
- Experience in managing contracts
- Experience of developing and securing grant funding
- Experience of working in a large complex organisation
Desirable Criteria
-
Experience of FE/HE intuition
How Identified: Application/Interview
Skills & Expertise
- Excellent communication skills both verbal and written
- Capable of representing the College in a professional manner with external agencies and stakeholders
- The ability to input and interpret data with a high level of accuracy
- The ability to negotiate with external customers to meet compliance requirements
- Excellent administration and IT skills (MS office - word and excel)
- Excellent organisational and prioritising skills
- The ability to work as part of a team
- The ability to identify and take forward service improvements
- Knowledge of the principles of data protection, financial regulations
- Additional Factors Relevant to the Post
- Willingly takes on new tasks and adopts new approaches as required
- Ability to make clear presentations to College staff at all levels
- Ability to deal with all levels of staff and students
- A commitment to the principles of Equality & Diversity
IT Skills
Essential Criteria
- Intermediate user of Microsoft applications
- Ability to use technology to generate information and improve efficiency
- Use of database or finance system to track grant project and contract management
STAFF BENEFITS
- Career average pension scheme
- Free gym membership at our Middleton Campus Sports Arena
- Purchase loans for computers and bikes
- Staff discount at the College’s Riverside Salon, Sports Arena and Holiday Clubs
- On-site nursery (Rochdale Campus)
- Credit union for savings, low cost loans and life assurance
- Free on-site parking
- On-site Dog Kennels (spaces not guaranteed)
- An electric and hybrid car salary sacrifice scheme (with charging points on site)
- A cycle to work scheme
- Discounted public transport tickets
- Generous holiday entitlement (Teaching staff: 53 days, Business Support staff: 35 days (From 1st August 2026) plus bank holidays
- Christmas/New Year closure and the opportunity to buy additional holidays
- Two Health and Wellbeing days per year
- Subsidised bistro and refectory
We are a Further Education College and University Centre offering a range of full and part time courses employing over 600 staff on our campuses in Rochdale and Middleton situated to the north-east of Manchester.
We are committed to being a great place to work and have membership status of the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter. We are a Living Wage employer and an accredited Disability Confident Employer. Our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion statement is designed to ensure that unfair discrimination does not take place in any part of our recruitment process.
We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all learners and colleagues and we expect all colleagues and volunteers to share this commitment. The college complies with Safer Recruitment guidance in line with Keeping Children Safe in Education and all successful applicants are required to undertake a DBS check and other pre-recruitment checks in line with our Safer Recruitment policy. It is an offence to apply for a regulated role at the College if you are barred from working with children (or vulnerable adults if in a role where this applies).
This role is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and exemption orders 1975, 2013 and 2020.
