The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has brought together Government’s central commercial capability into a single organisation, amalgamating Government Procurement Service with other commercial teams from the Cabinet Office and central government departments.

CCS is an executive agency of the Cabinet Office and operates as a trading fund under the Government Trading Funds Act 1973. Their remit is to work with both departments and organisations across the whole of the public sector to ensure maximum value is extracted from every commercial relationship and improve the quality of service delivery.

The CCS goal is to become the “go-to” place for expert commercial and procurement services. CCS has brought together policy, advice and direct buying to ensure that policy development is closely linked to implementation, with more emphasis on pre- and post-contract activity to extract more value for the taxpayer.

With both service delivery and advisory capability, services include contract management and supplier performance management to ensure that the Government acts as a true, single customer; freeing up individual organisations to focus their procurement expertise on what is unique to them.

CCS also works closely with arm’s length bodies, non-departmental public bodies, executive agencies and organisations across the whole of the UK public sector including health, local government, education, devolved administrations, emergency services and not for profit organisations.

There are a number of ways to access CCS services: self service via the website; assisted delivery, such as eAuctions and national further competitions run on behalf of multiple customers; and a fully managed service for departments.

CCS’s value for money, commercial solutions are fully EU compliant saving customers time and money across core commodity areas including energy, travel, fleet, office solutions, communications services, print, professional services, ICT, eCommerce, construction, research, facilities management and property.