The education sector spends over £10 billion a year on everyday goods and services. That’s the equivalent of 400 new secondary schools or 270,000 primary school teachers. We understand the powerful impact procurement can make on a school or academy. That’s why, as the largest public procurement organisation in the UK, we’ve developed a range of tailored solutions specifically for schools and academies.
These include deals, which are supported by the Department for Education (DfE), that make getting a good deal quick, easy and cost-effective. Leaving you more time to focus on what matters most – running your school.
You can use our commercial solutions free of charge and be confident that you’re accessing great value local and national suppliers. That’s why we are confident that we can bring real power to your procurement.
Our featured deals
We’re working closely with the Department for Education to help you tackle your expenditure on everyday goods and services:
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Supply Teachers
We understand the pressure schools and academies are under to find the right temporary staff.
We can help you fill temporary teaching and non-teaching roles compliantly, with an easy to use agency selection tool and the peace of mind of robust background checks.
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Cyber Security Services
Cyber security and awareness of the threat to children’s education is high on the agenda in all schools.
Our Cyber Security Services 3 agreement gives you access to a wide range of cyber security services, including consultancy and advice, penetration testing, incident response, data destruction, security operations centre and managed detection and response.
This agreement provides a dynamic filtering system, allowing you to shortlist suppliers based on your school’s needs. As the official route to market to buy National Cyber Security Centre assured services, suppliers offer a broad range of experience and accreditations.
We can also help you with
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Modular Classrooms
We can help schools deliver building improvement projects or new builds faster, greener and with greater value for money. Our Offsite Construction Solutions agreements offers access to a range of suppliers that specialise in education related buildings and structures. They can be hired for more immediate or temporary situations, or purchased for permanent infrastructure and added capacity projects.
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Multifunctional Devices (MFDs) and Printers
Now more than ever, it’s important for schools to save money where possible. Using our MFD agreement, you can gain access to the latest hardware, software and services in the market with no need to do the research.
Having been through the competitive tender process, our agreement can help you find the right solutions at the best price without the need to obtain 3 quotes.
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Tail Spend Solution
‘Tail spend’ refers to low-value, ad hoc purchases made by an organisation, often bought from lots of different suppliers. This spend goes largely under-managed, resulting in organisations not understanding what they are spending until purchases appear in their end of year accounts, causing significant budgetary pressures.
Our solution has been designed to ease this pressure by helping you get the best deals possible on millions of low value products for your school – from gym mats and tennis bats to drama equipment. It also helps you spend less time and money on invoicing, increase visibility and control of ‘hidden’ spend, and improve spend data.
Aggregation
We recognise that with budgets and resources more squeezed than ever, buying school essentials such as IT hardware and software licenses is no easy task. That’s why we offer a complimentary aggregation service, also known as collective buying, to help take some of the pressure off.
By combining the similar needs of customers from across the public sector, we can increase our national buying power to achieve savings that would not be possible through individual buying. For example, we’re supporting multi-academy trusts to aggregate spend across their schools.
Our team of experts will take care of the process for you, and make sure we get you the best possible deal.
Making responsible buying decisions
Our commercial agreements can help you achieve your sustainability and social value objectives and address the risk of modern slavery.
Watch the short video to learn all about our Procurement Essentials series. You can also view the transcript.
Our bitesize guides to common procurement concepts
Our new Procurement Essentials series covers a wide range of topics to help demystify the procurement process including the basics of frameworks, effective contract management, how to evaluate bids, and how to write a specification.
We’ll be continuing to add new articles every month, sharing our top tips and guidance to help you save time, maximise every pound and bring power to your procurement.
You can now find all of our Procurement Essentials articles in one place.
Blogs, news and case studies
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CCS appoints a new Chief Executive Officer
Following an external competition that launched in January, Sam Ulyatt has been appointed as the new Chief Executive of the Crown Commercial Service when Simon Tse retires in the summer.
Read more about CCS appoints a new Chief Executive Officer -
Crown Commercial Service marks 10 years of helping the UK public sector achieve value from its procurement
This month marks a big milestone in CCS’s calendar: we are celebrating our 10-year anniversary, following a decade of success and delivering value for our customers.
Read more about Crown Commercial Service marks 10 years of helping the UK public sector achieve value from its procurement -
Updated commercial pipeline – Procurement Act 2023
Discover our latest list of commercial agreements anticipated to be awarded under the new regime.
Read more about Updated commercial pipeline – Procurement Act 2023
Bringing power to your procurement
Your buying decisions have the power to make life better for everyone across the country. Find out why you should be making those decisions with CCS.
Get in touch
We're here to help power your procurement. Tell us if there is something we can help you with and one of our expert team members will be in touch.
Talk to us
You can also contact us by email or phone
Email: info@crowncommercial.gov.uk
Telephone: 0345 410 2222
CCS customer services team is available Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.