The National Distribution Centre
The National Distribution Centre (NDC) provides a critical logistics and supply chain service to all public sector prisons including the collection, storage and delivery of a wide range of products. Products stored and carried include goods from commercial suppliers, raw materials into workshops and a wide range of internally manufactured products. As part of the Ministry of Justice, the site also supports other front line delivered services where required. The in-house NDC fleet is designed to operate on a specialised demount system which is largely governed by challenges that arise from physical vehicular access restrictions across the prison estate, necessitating a mix of vehicle types and heights. The fleet delivers to the public sector prison estate on a national 5 day working week basis, operating a single shift system, supported by nights out as and when required. The current logistics and supply chain solution for prisons has been operating in much the same way for many years. Challenges including prison capacity increases, aging technology, limited space and sustainability pressures are all contributing to an environment where specific focus needs to be given to the future shape and scale of the logistics function, to deliver transformational change linked to the adoption of new technology and the efficiencies that can be delivered.
Commercial
The Logistics and Supply Chain function sits within the Commercial Directorate within the MoJ. The Ministry of Justice has one of the largest and most complex spending profiles in central government. Each year we spend more than £5 billion with our suppliers and it’s our job to help coordinate the sourcing of what we need. We support the management of our contracts across the department, its agencies and non departmental public bodies. Commercial is responsible for coordinating procurement and contract management across the MoJ, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies. Commercial is organised into category teams, each with an interesting portfolio of contracts and diverse customers and suppliers to manage. We also have systems, programme management office, supplier relationship and risk management teams who work across all areas.
Role Summary
The Operations Manager is a critical role which has responsibility for the day to day running of all aspects of the Logistic and Supply chain services provided across the prison estate through the National Distribution Centre. As such the role holder will be based at the NDC in Branston to oversee delivery of the operations. The role fits within a multi-disciplinary senior leadership team that is actively engaged in supporting the HMPPS prisoner decency agenda and focuses on the front line delivery of services to the prison service estate and, where required, the wider MoJ. The role reports into the Head of Supply Chain & Logistics. The Operations Manager has responsibility for a team of 58 FTE which includes three direct reports covering the warehouse, logistics and functional support, and their respective organisational structures.