Dear colleague,
At the time of writing, the position of the UK government is that the UK will leave the EU on 31 October.
If the UK leaves the EU without a deal, one of the major impacts would be on the movement of imported goods, especially those brought into the UK from the EU/EEA.
As an organisation we purchase an extensive range of items, from to food and drink to IT hardware, so this scenario presents a number of risks to our supply chains.
As Professor Steve Egan mentioned last week, there has already been a lot of work behind the scenes to identify and manage these risks.
The Procurement team has been talking to our purchasing consortia and major suppliers to identify every category of goods and services where disruption to the supply chain is judged to be of medium to high risk.
For each of the goods or services identified the University either now holds a proportionate amount of additional stock or we have identified alternative options within the existing supply chain.
The Procurement team is continually monitoring demand and stock levels for each area. We are confident that the measures in place will enable the University to manage a period of disruption.
We are continuing to work with colleagues in technical services to identify current stocks of critical products for our laboratories and put remedial measures in place where required.
The team has created a series of Brexit supply chain webpages with information for Estates, IT, Professional Services and Science and Engineering.
For all the current University information on Brexit and guidance for staff and students please visit our Brexit web pages.
Regards,
Martin Williams
Director of Finance