Record £3.8 billion commercial benefits delivered though Crown Commercial Service agreements

CCS agreements provide public sector bodies with a choice of approved suppliers who offer the best value, leveraging the scale of public sector demand. By using these agreements, public sector customers can achieve commercial benefits such as reduced costs compared to market prices and better value in contract terms and conditions. 

Results

The newly published CCS annual report and accounts for 2022/23 show £3.8 billion of commercial benefits were achieved across the public sector, an increase of £800 million compared to the previous year. This includes £11.4 million in savings for 26 customers on 4 mobile and data aggregations services, such as voice calls, connectivity and applications. 

Throughout 2022/23, CCS has developed its procurement expertise more widely, and provided new commercial routes for customers, with 26 new agreements procured this year. For example, CCS launched its first of a kind, Big Data and Analytics agreement to help support the requirements of the government and the wider public sector as they continue to use data to innovate. 

Minister Alex Burghart – Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office, said:

Getting commercial and procurement decisions right is critical to good government. Crown Commercial Service is helping central government and other public bodies get just those decisions right – improving services and saving the taxpayer money as they do.

Spending through CCS frameworks has also increased, reaching over £31 billion (all spend types) in 2022/23. This means CCS has already reached its target of £30 billion by 2024, more than doubling the spend through its agreements in 5 years, and represents growth of more than £3 billion compared to last year.

There has been continued progress with efforts to enable small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to participate in commercial agreements, with £2.6 billion (14.4%) of central government spend directly with 1,541 SMEs. This represents an increase of £340 million in spend compared to 2021/22.

Simon Tse, CEO of Crown Commercial Service, said:

We want to continue to deepen our impact and bring our commercial expertise to bear across the entire public sector.

We have a clear vision for our future. Underpinning this vision is a comprehensive strategy that is focused on developing our products and services and ensuring that the customer is at the centre of everything we do.

CCS agreements have also supported public sector customers with policy priorities, such as net zero commitments and social value, for example by supporting SMEs access to public procurement opportunities and encouraging prompt payment practice.

The organisation has now identified 36 commercial solutions in areas that can help accelerate the transition to net zero. In September 2022, it launched a new carbon net zero (CNZ) funding page on the website, enabling users to see all open CNZ grants and funding opportunities from across the government in one place. The grants are mapped to appropriate routes to market offered by CCS, making it easy for customers to fund and operationalise net zero initiatives.

Chair of the CCS Board, Tony van Kralingen said:

I’m delighted to be able to reflect back on yet another successful year for the organisation. As a result of CCS’s growth over the last few years, we are now in a position to invest in programmes and projects to help further develop commercial capability across the public sector. 

I must give thanks to all of CCS’s customers and suppliers who continue to work closely with us to realise savings across the public sector.

The year at a glance

• over £31 billion of public sector spend (all spend types) was channelled through CCS agreements
• customers who have used CCS products and services have achieved commercial benefits equivalent to £3.8 billion
• CCS’s employee engagement index, as measured by the Civil Service People Survey, remains high at 69% in 2022
• £2.6 billion (14.4%) of central government spend directly with 1,541 SMEs. This represents an increase of £340 million in spend compared to 2021/22
• the assisted procurement service helped deliver procurements for customers worth a total annual contract value of £2.3 billion

Read the full report

You can read CCS’s annual report and accounts on gov.uk.

You can find a full list of all the commercial agreements CCS offers, alongside details of how CCS can help you build policy considerations into your procurement, in our interactive digital brochure.