Making procurement work

Balancing compliance, complexity and capacity in the real world

Seminar Brief

Procurement doesn’t need to be perfect to be powerful. In this down-to-earth session, Helen Taylor, Procurement Officer at Ebor Academy Trust, shares her practical experiences of managing procurement across 25 schools – not as a career-long specialist, but as a problem-solver, systems-thinker, and passionate advocate for purposeful change.

Whether you're building your first contract register, consolidating purchases across sites, or just trying to stay on top of software subscriptions and supply agencies, this session will offer relatable examples and real-life solutions you can take away and apply. You'll learn how to spot risks, work more efficiently, and drive better value – even with limited time and resource.

In this seminar, we explore

• How to ace procurement even when you're not a "procurement expert"
• Consolidating contracts with simple tips and tricks that can be applied across schools or departments
• Navigating risk around software, data sharing and safeguarding
• Building and using a centralised contract register
• Lessons from implementing a master vendor agreement
• Finding practical wins that save time and reduce admin
• Relationship-building as a procurement superpower

Take-home points

• Practical tips for improving procurement oversight and reducing risk
• Examples of scalable solutions that work in both large and small settings
• Confidence to ask better questions, spot gaps, and join the dots

• Reassurance that you don't need to be a specialist to make an impact

This session is for school business professionals who

Are responsible for procurement or contracts or consolidating systems across schools, and who want practical advice, time-saving ideas and the confidence to make procurement work better in their setting – whether that's one school, with a cross-departmental confusion, a growing trust an established trust wanting to drive efficiencies and save time and money.