HEPA Digest: July 2021

Head of Procurement Survey

A huge thank you to everyone who has already submitted their response to the 2021 HEPA Head of Procurement survey.  The survey closes on Friday next week and is essential to help us understand the impact of recent events on HoPs and their teams as well as feeding into the L&D programme for the upcoming Procurement Bill.  

You should have received the invite to complete the survey through SurveyMonkey already – if you have not received your link then please do get in touch with Ashley who will provide you with this asap.

National Procurement Policy Statement: information session

On the subject of the Procurement Bill, the Cabinet Office recently ran information sessions covering the National Procurement Policy Statement (NPPS).  In case you couldn’t make the session, a recording has been made available which you can access here.  If these upcoming changes are relevant to you and your team then the recording is very much worth a watch.

HEPA Competency Toolkit to be discontinued

We will be discontinuing the HEPA Competency Toolkit from next month, August 2021, onwards.  The Toolkit is hosted externally and as such attracts additional operating costs.  Usage of the Toolkit, which was introduced in 2013, has tailed off over the years and the hosting charges are no longer cost effective.  If you or your team would like to store any Job Descriptions etc. then please ensure that you save these locally before the end of this month, July 2021.

Plastic Packaging Tax

Last week HMRC issued more information on the upcoming Plastic Packaging Tax.  There will be a £200 per tonne tax rate for packaging with less than 30% recycled plastic and a registration threshold will apply of 10 tonnes of plastic packaging produced in or imported into the UK per annum.  Andrea provides a great summary of what we know so far, including a breakdown of the three categories of packaging that are not subject to the tax – read all about it here.

The Organisational Impact of Cyber Attacks in Higher Education: recording

Did you attend our session that we ran in conjunction with Lloyds Bank and the University of Hertfordshire exploring the Organisational Impact of Cyber Attacks?  If so, I hope you’ll agree that the session really was a must watch.  In case you missed it, you can catch-up here.

Places and Spaces - planning for the next academic year in uncertain times

Colleagues from PHES and beyond are holding what promises to be a fascinating session focused on planning for the next academic year in uncertain times.  With a panel of experts formed by members from Estates, Finance, Business, Planning, IT and HR providing a cross-section of universities’ professional departments, this event will consider a range of perspectives on the challenges and opportunities institutions face when planning for the next academic year.  The session takes place at 15:30 on 5 August and places are free of charge: sign up here!

Round-up

• Find out all about NWUPC’s new Global Workforce Mobility framework here, including a recording of Natasha’s insightful webinar;
• Check out SOS-UK’s useful Sustainable Food Guide here;
• Rob at SUPC has written an interesting article on benchmarking – a launchpad for better procurement performance – which you can read here;
• Congratulations to NEUPC who have been successfully re-assessed by CIPS and approved as a CIPS study Centre for the delivery of CIPS qualifications and procurement apprenticeship for a further year – find out more here;
• And don’t forget that you can re-watch the ten on-demand sessions from the LUPC & SUPC Conference on their YouTube channel – slides and links are here.