Published
By Ashley Cox
Crescent Purchasing Consortium has successfully moved to map the content of its Crescent Learning hub to the Institute of School Business Leadership's Professional Standards, offering our schools and MATs an additional level of quality assurance.
Developed both for and by the education sector itself, the ISBL's Professional Standards are recognised by the Department for Education as "the key reference document for evaluating professional competency" and provide a structure for school business managers to progress, using outlined core and specialist competencies that span eight key disciplines (including procurement).
As a registered charity, CPC is committed to investing in education through various purchases, projects and events, with our priceless learning and development section enabling us to enhance and advance procurement capability in the public sector.
Launched at the start of this academic year, Crescent Learning is another example of CPC support for UK institutions on their procurement journey, equipping novices and experts alike with a substantial selection of learning and development resources.
Now, across its nine-chapter guide to Procurement Essentials in education, plus focuses on the public procurement pillars of Plan, Define, Procure and Manage, CPC has integrated references to which of the ISBL's Professional Standards the respective information aligns with, enabling professionals to track their own development, while absorbing a wealth of useful knowledge.
As well as affirming and categorising content presented by Crescent Learning, this alignment also enables members of the ISBL to approach and employ our resources in a more confident and methodical manner, assisting individuals and institutions, alike.
CPC's Procurement L&D Lead, Mark Pearson, expressed his hope this development might represent "the start of a symbiotic relationship with the Institute of School Business Leadership", emphasising a "shared goal of raising professional standards".
The driving force behind our information-packed Crescent Learning platform, Mark commented “I am pleased we can signpost our Crescent Learning resources to ISBL members”, expanding that the ISBL's Professional Standards “provide those in school business leadership roles with a framework for excellence”, thus “creating an ability to grow their own professional expertise”.
“Unlike further and higher education, where procurement is more of a standalone function within the finance team, school business managers often have to develop a wider range of core skills - with procurement one of these areas”, Mark added.
"Having last year seen the relevant section of the Professional Standards, I was impressed by the succinct breakdown of the procurement function and saw it aligned with our ethos of promoting procurement excellence, within the education sector.
“Through working with ISBL over the past year, we have been able to map Crescent Learning to these standards. This means school business managers pursuing ISBL accreditation now have a go-to, free-to-access learning and development resource".
ISBL Professional Standards references are also now included in our extensive Procurement Toolkit, which compiles support templates and procurement-related documents, as accessible to CPC members (education institutions can register for free).
A tenured procurement specialist and authority, with more than 35 years' experience, Procurement L&D Lead, Mark Pearson, has been at Crescent Purchasing Consortium since August 2019, adopting his current learning and development role in 2024.
An Advanced Practitioner of Procurement Act 2023, Mark has been an integral part of CPC's comprehensive response to the regulatory transition, establishing and growing a dedicated Procurement Portal, which itself would be signposted by the DfE.
The inaugural expert guest of our CPC Podcast series, No Ordinary Day in Procurement, Mark has helped empower a variety of professionals across the education sector, delivering webinars for our Procurement Advisory Group, plus in-person sessions for the UK Government's innovative Communities of Practice, as well as appearing as a speaker at the Schools and Academies Show, Education Business Live and the Association of Colleges' Finance Conference, sharing relevant knowledge and insights.
In October, Mark is set to run Pro-Manchester's Tendering & Supplying to the Public Sector event, examining processes public sector bodies must follow, while discussing Crescent Learning and the support it can offer to suppliers, tendering for contracts.
In the meantime, suppliers and institutions alike can explore our range of Crescent Learning resources with ISBL references via the platform's homepage, with stakeholders encouraged to direct any further queries to [email protected]