16 March 2006 | Rebecca Ellinor

Sweeping changes continue in the procurement department at Barclays with the departure of some of its buying team.

Among those to leave is Lee Tribe, former head of global products and services sourcing.

A spokesman told SM: "A small number of the sourcing team have left to pursue other opportunities, and we thank them for their contribution to the bank."

He confirmed that Tribe, who played a key part in Barclays winning the CIPS Supply Management Award for best process improvement initiative in October, was among them.

The latest departures are understood to be as a result of a change of senior management and restructuring of Barclays' purchasing function.

The spokesman told SM the bank was moving to a category management model to "leverage its global spend on sourcing."

"Our ambition to make Barclays one of the handful of truly global banks has created changing requirements in sourcing," he said.

"As a result, we are currently recruiting for staff with the right experience for the new roles. We are looking for, and in some areas have already placed, sourcing managers with good knowledge and expertise in the bank's major spend areas, such as marketing, HR and professional services."

He was unable to say whether these appointments had been made internally and who had assumed the roles.

These developments follow the exit of Kim Godwin, former chief procurement officer, in November. He was replaced by Jon Kirby from food service company Compass Group in December.

John Durrell, former head of IT purchasing, also left in November, and was succeeded by former Merrill Lynch employee Mike Daly as head of global technology sourcing. Kirby and Daly are understood to influence a combined spend of £3 billion.

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