The charity Save the Children has developed a new procurement training programme for its own staff which is now also being offered to the wider charities sector to ensure their budgets are spent in a more effective way. Using the global framework and standard from The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS), the global professional body for procurement, Save the Children’s training is designed to develop core skills and knowledge, sharing best practice examples and tools across civil society organisations around the world.
The global standard from CIPS sets out what excellence should look like in professional procurement and supply practice, at all levels, in all sectors and across the globe. The framework is available free for everyone and is used to develop skills gaps analyses in teams or the professional development for individuals. Anyone completing the Procurement Process course can go on to start CIPS professional training and qualifications with the basic grounding in the core principles.
The Procurement Process course was initially developed internally by Save the Children but then updated for the wider sector with the support of the Inter-Agency Procurement Group (IAPG), an international network of supply chain professionals from over 25 charities and NGOs (non-governmental organisations). The 4-hour, free course is hosted on the DisasterReady learning platform and will shortly be translated into Ukrainian and Polish with French and Spanish to follow later in the year.
Malcolm Harrison, Group CEO, CIPS said, “I’m delighted that Save the Children has used the CIPS Global Standard for Procurement and Supply to create the Procurement Essentials Training Course.
“It’s encouraging to see the CIPS Global Standard, a competency framework, used in this way to support the ambition to develop procurement capability within the whole charities sector. The course introduces basic procurement processes, along with an overview of some key procurement skills to deliver on sustainability goals and conduct procurement ethically.
“Anyone who has completed this training will have a good foundation in the skills and knowledge required to undertake procurement and supply activities in ways which are sustainable, effective and efficient; resulting in a positive impact on beneficiaries and communities alike. They can then progress to CIPS higher level training to further develop their skills.”
Jim Ridgwick, Global Head of Procurement at Save the Children, said, “After using this programme with our own 600 procurement staff we experienced substantial financial savings from our supplier spending and operational improvements across our key metrics.
“There is a significant opportunity to improve procurement in the 3rd sector so by providing this training to other charities and civil society groups, we hope they too realise tangible benefits from better procurement practices to deliver their missions.
I am most excited about how this programme will serve procurement practitioners in small to medium sized civil society organisations outside of the UK, operating in difficult supply market contexts, as part of a national procurement strengthening agenda.”