About us
Evenlode Landscape Recovery (ELR) is delivering one of Defra’s ambitious 25-year Landscape Recovery programmes across the North East Cotswolds. Spanning approximately 3,031 hectares and around 50 farm holdings in the Dorn, Glyme and Evenlode river catchments, the programme brings together farmers, landowners and partners to restore rivers and habitats, improve water quality, reduce flood risk and create lasting environmental and economic value.
ELR works hand in hand with the North East Cotswold Farmer Cluster CIC, a farmer-led community interest company committed to nature-friendly farming at a landscape scale. Together we combine ambitious environmental delivery with a genuinely collaborative, farmer-first approach. As we move into an exciting delivery phase, we are building a talented team to help us realise our long-term vision.
The role
The Procurement Co-ordinator runs ELR’s procurement exercises from end to end: turning an agreed scope of work into a tender or quotation pack, taking it to market, co-ordinating evaluation and due diligence, and handing the awarded contract across to the delivery team. You are the person who makes sure every pound of public and private investment is spent through a process that is fair, transparent, well evidenced and quick enough to keep delivery moving.
It is a role with a lot of independence in the running, clear support from a supportive team around you helping you decide. If you like processes that actually work, records that stand up, and a market more interesting than office supplies, this is for you
Key responsibilities
Preparing and packaging requirements
- Work with the relevant workstream or habitat lead to compile the scope of work, deliverables, sites and land parcels, milestones, technical standards, dependencies on permits and consents, data requirements, and health and safety considerations
- Confirm that estimated spend maps to an approved budget line and, where grant funded, to the relevant Natural England payment schedule reference, before any procurement begins
- Recommend the procurement route against value bands and the complexity of the requirement, checking that related spend has been aggregated properly rather than split below a threshold
- Assemble tender and quotation packs, invitations to tender (ITT), invitations to quote (ITQ) and requests for quotation (RFQ) with the approved contract terms, pricing schedule, insurance requirements, and evaluation criteria and weightings agreed and recorded before issue
- Where requirements are grouped into lots, record the packaging rationale and build in bidder capacity declarations and any cap on lots awarded to a single supplier
Running the exercise
- Issue to all identified suppliers simultaneously, run a single clarification window with questions and answers circulated to everyone, and log submissions on receipt
- Score as a member of the evaluation panel, then draft the moderation note and the award recommendation so the reasoning is legible to someone who was not in the room
- Co-ordinate due diligence before award: verified in-date professional indemnity, public liability and employer’s liability cover at the levels required, with expiry dates recorded; references or evidence of comparable work; financial standing checks on higher-value contracts; and relevant accreditations and competence
- Work with the Systems & Data Lead on controlled bidder access to spatial, survey and parcel data.
Award, handover and records
- Put the recommendation to the approver named in the Delegated Authority and Procurement Matrix, then brief Finance to raise the purchase order and hold the line that no supplier starts without one
- Prepare award and regret letters, assemble the contract documentation from our approved templates, and co-ordinate input from our retained commercial and legal advisers where terms need it
- Build the handover pack and arrange the kick-off meeting that transfers delivery to the Contracts & Site Supervisor, who then owns day-to-day contract management
- Maintain a single auditable procurement file for every exercise, and keep the contract register current — values, cumulative variations, insurance expiries, data processing agreements, purchase order references and status
Keeping the function running
- Support budget holders across the whole of our spend, site and works contracts, but also professional services, IT and data platforms, insurance, and office and facilities costs
- Track cumulative variations against contract value and flag them as they approach the approval thresholds, so nothing creeps past unnoticed
- Administer the commercial back-end of contracts, checking timesheets, expenses and invoices against contract terms, resolving supplier queries, and putting cost evidence into the format our funders require
- Build and share market knowledge, who the capable suppliers are, what techniques and providers are emerging across our sectors, and where competition is thin
- Improve the tools, templates and trackers as the function beds in, and flag where the procedure itself is getting in the way
Person specification
Essential
- Experience of procurement, contract administration, bid co-ordination or a comparable process-driven commercial role. You do not need to have run a major public tender single-handed, but you do need to have worked to a defined process and kept it clean
- Exceptional organisation and records discipline, and the ability to hold several exercises at different stages without losing track of any of them
- Strong written and numerical skills, with the ability to produce clear tender documents, cost comparisons, evaluation records and moderation notes
- Confident chasing information, checking evidence and holding people to deadlines, including people more senior than you.
- A good working understanding of value for money and of fair, transparent treatment of suppliers, and the judgement to know when a process is proportionate and when it is theatre
- Able to apply sound procurement process to technically unfamiliar subject matter, working with specialists to turn what they need into a clear, biddable specification
- Able to work independently in a remote setting while collaborating effectively across a small team
Desirable
- Experience of procurement in a public-sector, grant-funded, charitable or otherwise regulated environment
- Experience maintaining a contract register, procurement file or comparable audit-facing record set
- Able to work effectively with farmers and land managers, including where members of the farmer cluster are themselves delivering contracts, with an understanding of the seasonality and pressures of farm businesses
- Familiarity with environmental, construction or land-based supply chains
- Experience of working in a start-up, small charity, NGO or other community-focused organisation, or a clear appetite for the particular challenges of a farmer-led, community-rooted programme
Attitude
- Believes good procurement enables delivery rather than getting in its way
- Rigorous about fairness and audit trail, without turning process into ceremony
- Commercially curious, wants to understand the market being bought from, not just run the paperwork
- Comfortable saying when something is not compliant, and constructive about finding the route that is
- Happy to raise a hand early rather than let a problem mature quietly
How we work
- We’re a small team delivering a scheme at a serious scale, which means the process is still being built as we go. You’ll help shape how this function works.
- We move quickly and fix things as we learn, rather than waiting for the perfect process before we start
- You’ll run exercises end to end, with a written procedure to work to and a Director of Operations who backs the decisions you prepare
- We’re a close team. You’ll work directly with the people making the decisions
- Remote-first, with occasional travel to the programme area
What you’ll get
- A procurement function being built rather than inherited, and a genuine hand in shaping it
- An unusual and interesting market to buy from, river restoration, habitat creation and natural capital, not office supplies
- Support towards professional procurement qualification, and room to grow with the function as the programme scales
- Flexible working, a workplace pension and a generous annual leave entitlement (33 days)
- The chance to play a meaningful part in a flagship, long-term environmental programme
Pay: £30,000.00-£34,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Company pension
- Flexitime
- Sick pay
- Work from home
Ability to commute/relocate:
- Oxford, Oxfordshire: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (required)
Work Location: Hybrid remote in Oxford (Oxfordshire)
