KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Michael Healy - Director of National Procurement

Michael Healy was appointed Director of National Procurement (NP) within NHS National Services Scotland in August 2005. He has an impressive track record in Supply Chain management and Strategic Sourcing with Motorola, where he was Senior Director, Worldwide Strategic Sourcing and Supply Chain. Michael wished to return to Scotland and has been invaluable in implementing organisational and cultural change in health procurement.

His expertise has guided National Procurement’s development and, working with Health Boards, has established best procurement and the realisation of savings for front line care. Michael’s vision is for National Procurement to be recognised as a leading procurement organisation within the public sector and achieve world class levels of performance comparable to leading private sector organisations. National Procurement has made significant progress towards reaching this goal and is already making a positive contribution to the NHS in Scotland.

SPEAKERS

Dr Gordon Murray MSc PhD DipM MCIPS AdvDipAM

Gordon is a programme manager within the Improvement and Development Agency for local government. He responsible for a range of performance support to councils, the operational delivery of IDeA’s asset management peer reviews and planning peer reviews, procurement programmes and consultancy, including Procurement Fitness Checks and Challenges, e-procurement support, procurement skills development, and sustainable procurement.  In addition he provides guidance on procurement strategy, organisation and management, and performance management. 

He was a member of the SPTF’s International Benchmarking Working Group, and an expert peer reviewer on Defra’s, Sustainable Consumption and Production evidence based research programme on:

• Downstream impacts of sustainable procurement;
• Policy priorities for sustainable procurement;
• Successful approaches to sustainable procurement.
• Cost/Benefit analysis on sustainable procurement.

He had 25 years experience as a local government procurement practitioner with Belfast City Council where, as procurement manager, he developed their award winning Purchasing Strategy and approaches to sustainable procurement. 

His experience is supported by an MSc in Purchasing and Supply Management, a PhD focusing on ‘Improving Purchasing’s strategic contribution’, and a broad range of professional qualifications. Gordon’s research on procurement strategy has been published in a broad range of peer-reviewed journals

 

Nikki Bell - Best Procurement Practice Manager, Scottish Executive - Scottish Procurement Directorate

Nikki is a senior procurement, commodity and programme manager. Her specialisms include project, change and supplier management within UK and international environments encompassing leading complex software platform implementations; major sourcing, resourcing, and rationalisation projects; supplier management and development; and a focus on assuring best value through collaboration, total cost management, quality and process improvements.

With a strong blue-chip and public sector background Nikki recently joined the Scottish Procurement Directorate from NHS National Services Scotland where she was interim Strategic Sourcing Director with responsibility for leading this strategic sourcing organisation through a period of major organisational change, and for providing strategic direction to harness NHS Scotland's purchasing power to deliver targeted and sustainable savings through collaboration and the use of best practice procurement.

Currently she is supporting the programme planning and management associated with driving Procurement Reform in Scotland with key responsibilities for establishing, influencing and facilitating best procurement practice, training and professional standards across public sector in Scotland.

Nikki is an experienced resource manager used to leading and managing environments facing significant change, and to building and evolving professional procurement organisations through recruitment, training, development and the roll-out of best procurement practice, tools and techniques.

 

Alison Jaap - Head of Partnership & Joint Working, Improvement Service Scotland

Alison joined the Improvement Service in September 2005 to lead the partnership and joint ventures programme. She is an experienced programme manager with a track record in the delivery of large scale national change programmes within the public and private sector. She has particular expertise in working across organisational boundaries to deliver a step change in performance.

Alison joined the Improvement Service from PA Consulting where she worked with a range of clients. In recent years she was responsible for delivery of a number of high profile change programmes including creation of the Scottish Executive Relocation Advisory Service; creation of a e-learning company to support regeneration in Yorkshire; developing the approach to contact and migrate the method of payment for 13 million DWP customers; ensuring continuity of payment and realisation of £1billion plus benefits through an ordered run down of production capability - a programme recently awarded OGC mission critical project of the year. Prior to working in the public sector Alison worked within financial services designing and implementing large scale retail banking transformation projects both in the UK and overseas.

 

Ian Schollar

Ian Schollar joined the Professional Practice Team at Easton House in 2005, although he had already had a long association with the Institute. He was a founder examiner for the CIPS Certificate Level qualification and also taught the Graduate Diploma at Croydon College for a number of years. He started his career as a Purchasing Assistant for the Civil Aviation Authority working at Gatwick Control Tower and moved on to become a Purchasing Officer at CAA House in London. In 1994, Ian became Purchasing Manager for the Surrey Fire and Rescue Service and was a key member of the Surrey County Council’s Strategic Review Team.

Since 1998, Ian worked as a Senior Advisor for Crown Agents, an International Development Agency based in Sutton, Surrey. His role has been to build the procurement capacity of both private and predominantly Public Sector officials across the World. He has worked in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and Eastern Europe.

Ian is presently the Head of Procurement Practice at CIPS and has particular responsibility for the Public Sector within the Professional Practice Team. He is responsible for developing the CIPS position in this area and providing relevant guidance and support to those going through a time of considerable change.

 

Dorothy Cowie, UK Procurement Director, Scottish Power UK plc

Dorothy is the UK Procurement Director for ScottishPower and is responsible for leading a team of 51 procurement staff in developing and implementing appropriate procurement strategies and commercial frameworks to proactively manage an annual spend portfolio of circa £700M. She has 24 years experience in the utilities sector and has held a number of senior procurement posts during that time. She has a proven track record in developing people, business processes, systems, procedures and performance management metrics to deliver continuous improvement in procurement activities and to meet her customers’ expectations. She and has delivered a number of significant change management programmes in ScottishPower including the implementation of a major IT system, the adoption and integration of EU procurement directive rules into the business, the establishment of a shared service model for transactional procurement activities and, recently, the centralisation and rationalisation of procurement activities across the Group. Dorothy is a Board Director of Selectusonline, a procurement consortium joint venture company involving ScottishPower, United Utilities and Northern Electric and is a passionate believer in the power of collaborative working to deliver significant value to all parties.

 

Michael Healy, Director of National Procurement, NHS National Services Scotland

Michael was appointed Director of National Procurement within NHS National Services Scotland in August 2005. He has an impressive track record in Supply Chain management and Strategic Sourcing with Motorola, where he was Senior Director, Worldwide Strategic Sourcing and Supply Chain. Michael wished to return to Scotland and has been invaluable in implementing organisational and cultural change in health procurement. His expertise has guided National Procurement’s development and, working with Health Boards, he has established best procurement and the realisation of savings for frontline care. Michael’s vision is for National Procurement to be recognised as a leading procurement organisation within the public sector and achieve world class levels of performance comparable to leading private sector organisations. National Procurement has made significant progress towards reaching this goal and is already making a positive contribution to the NHS in Scotland.

 

Søren Jakobsen, Managing Director, Statens og Kommunernes Indkøbs Service A/S (Danish National Procurement Ltd)

Søren has been Managing Director of Statens og Kommunernes Indkøbs Service A/S (Danish National Procurement Ltd) since the autumn of 2002. He gained a Master’s degree in Commerce in 1989 and an executive MBA in 1996. His professional life started at the chemical company BASF in 1989. In 1991 he was employed as a secretary to the management at Det Berlingske Officin (owner and joint owner of a range of media in Denmark). From 1996 until 2001 he was Director of Advertisements at Berlingske Dagblade A/S and in 2001 he was appointed Commercial Director at Berlingske Tidende (one of Denmark’s major newspapers).

 

Irene McCulloch MBA, Head of Support Services, Authorities Buying Consortium

Irene was appointed Head of Support Services for abc in October 2003. Since joining abc she has driven support and development both within the organisation and for the procurement community using the services of abc. She is an ardent supporter of professional learning and development and has a vision to see professional procurement gaining recognition as a discipline which is fundamental to the running of effective, efficient public services. Irene is an experienced local government manager with expertise in delivering change and facilitating development and benefits from experience gained in over 20 years' working in local government services leading support and development within customer-led environments.

 

Ronnie McLean, Director, Authorities Buying Consortium

Ronnie has been involved in local government since 1972 and is abc's first Director. A graduate of Glasgow University with a Diploma in Public Administration, Ronnie is the Chair of the Scottish Local Government Procurement Forum. He is also a Member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply.

 

Jim Mullholland, e-abc Programme Manager

Jim has been the e-abc eProcurement Programme Manager since September 2003. The e-abc team were engaged to support the implementation of e-procurement and the eProcurement Scotl@nd Scotland service in the abc Member Councils. They also contributed to the initial scoping and development of the successful collaborative buying initiative and the associated communication tool ‘Share-it’. Of the 12 abc West of Scotland councils, 11 have made a decision to implement or have implemented an e-procurement solution within their organisations, and six have selected the eProcurement Scotl@nd service. Prior to joining abc, Jim had over 25 years' procurement experience with IBM UK Ltd, providing procurement and supply chain management services at local, national and international levels.

 

Neil Stewart, Buyer, eProcurement Scotl@nd, Scottish Executive

Neil is a career buyer, having worked in procurement for the UK Department for Transport and, since 1998, the Scottish Executive. He has been involved with the eProcurement Scotl@nd programme since its inception in 2001 and has worked closely on the development of the programme's electronic tendering capability. Neil's particular focus is on supporting buying organisations to exploit the possibilities of electronic tendering and electronic auctions.

 

Jean Sutherland, Contract Development Manager, Authorities Buying Consortium

Jean has 15 years' procurement experience in both central and local government with responsibilities over a comprehensive product range. Currently, she heads abc's Contract Development Unit with the role of facilitating and extending collaborative buying.