Guidance

Crown Commercial Service customer update: November 2015

Published 27 November 2015

This guidance was withdrawn on

This article has been withdrawn because it’s over 4 years old.

© Crown copyright 2015

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/crown-commercial-service-update-november-2015/crown-commercial-service-customer-update-november-2015

1. Reminder: eSourcing suite downtime

In order to assure the continued availability of our eSourcing suite, the service provider, IBM, needs to move the system to a new hosting location.

This move is scheduled to begin on Wednesday 2 December at 23:00 (GMT) and it is anticipated that it will be complete by the evening of Friday 4 December.

During this time there will be no access to the eSourcing suite for suppliers and buyers.

Further advice for buyers

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience this necessary downtime may cause you. If you need further advice please email eenablement@crowncommercial.gov.uk

2. Steel procurement guidelines

New guidelines have been launched to support UK steel suppliers, helping them compete on a level playing field with international suppliers for major government projects.

The guidelines apply to infrastructure, construction or other major procurement projects with a significant steel component, where the overall project requirement has a capital value of £10 million or more. All central government departments, including their executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies, must follow these new guidelines. Wider public sector organisations are also strongly encouraged to adopt this approach.

Read the Procurement Policy Note: procuring steel in major projects for further details.

Looking for a particular procurement policy note? View the collection of all procurement policy notes

3. Prompt payment policy guidance

The prompt payment policy is government’s commitment to make improvements to payment practices across the public and private sector, with a particular focus on actions that support smaller businesses. Information on the measures introduced by the government to tackle late and unfair payment practices in the public sector has been published.

Read the Prompt payment policy guidance for full details.

4. New pricing agreement with Huddle for cloud collaboration tools

We have signed a preferential pricing agreement with Huddle for secure cloud collaboration tools to help you securely share files, manage projects and collaborate on content, projects and programmes of work.

With UK data centres to protect the sovereignty of your data, and the ability for users to maintain a full and transparent audit trail of all activities, Huddle provides a secure platform for managing information that is rated as OFFICIAL under the Government Security Classification Policy.

Huddle’s public sector-specific pricing is available to all public sector organisations that purchase through G-Cloud on the Digital Marketplace

To find out more please email softwarelicensing@crowncommercial.gov.uk

View details of all our current public sector software discounts

5. Latest Mystery Shopper results

The Mystery Shopper scheme allows suppliers to report tenders they did not understand or instances of what they believe to be poor procurement practice. We use this information to help procurers ensure they are transparent and open. The scheme publishes results of investigations every 2 weeks.

View the latest Mystery Shopper results to see how the scheme is helping to improve procurement practices.

6. Webinars

6.1 G-Cloud webinar

We’re hosting a webinar to show customers how the Digital Marketplace works and the difference between G-Cloud and Digital Services on Wednesday 16 December at 10am. If you would like to attend email cloud_digital@crowncommercial.gov.uk

6.2 Licensing Hour webinar

This month’s Licensing Hour webinar to discuss the latest developments in software licensing will also take place on Wednesday 16 December at 10.30am.

Register to attend

7. New agreements

Employee Services (RM3704), and Laundry and Linen Services (RM1031) have all recently awarded and will go live shortly. G-Cloud 7 (RM1557vii) is now live.

As well as being able to view full details of all live agreements in the find an agreement directory you can also download a summary list of all the available CCS agreements. This list is updated monthly so you will always have access to the latest information.

8. Contract notices

The following contract notices have recently been published for new procurements we are developing:

You can view details of all ongoing or planned procurements on our procurement pipeline

9. Agreements expiring shortly

  • Payroll, Human Resources (HR) and Finance Services (RM887) will expire on 1 December 2015. We are currently exploring options for a replacement agreement.

  • Central Government Travel Management Services (RM918, lot 2) will expire on 20 December. It has been replaced by Crown Travel and Venue Services which is now live.

  • Bookings Services for Meetings & Events across Central Government (RM1555) will expire on 31 December. It has been replaced by Crown Travel and Venue Services which is now live.

  • Translation, Transcription & Ancillary Services (RM987) is due to expire on 31 December. We are exploring options to ensure continuity of service for customers during the development of Language Services which is due to award in March 2016.

  • Face to Face Interpreting Services (RM738) is due to expire on 16 January 2016. We are exploring options to ensure continuity of service for customers during the development of Language Services which is due to award in March 2016.

  • Civil Service Learning (RM1568) is due to expire on 20 February. It will be replaced by Learning & Development (RM3769) which is due to award in December.

  • Insurance Services (RM958) is due to expire on 25 February. It will be replaced by a new agreement (RM3731) which is due to award in January 2016.

  • Multifunctional Devices, Managed Print and Print Audit Services (RM1599) is due to expire on 29 February 2016. We are currently engaging with customers and reviewing the options to ensure continuity of service during the development of a replacement agreement.

10. Expired agreements

G-Cloud 5 (RM1557v) expired on 22 November. G-Cloud 6 is due to run until 1 February 2016 and G-Cloud 7 G-Cloud 7 (RM1557vii) is now live.

11. Agreement extensions

Legal Services (RM919) has been extended until 31 January 2017.

12. Sign up for email alerts

You can sign up for immediate, daily or weekly email alerts which will tell you what we have added or updated on the GOV.UK website. It is a great way to stay up to date with the latest news and information from CCS. Sign up for email alerts and provide your email address and select the frequency you wish to receive updates.

eSourcing log on

eMarketplace log on

If you use these tools frequently why not save them to your favourites for easy access? Not yet registered? Find out how to register:

If you need further information about anything in this update please do not hesitate to contact our helpdesk on 0345 410 2222 or email info@crowncommercial.gov.uk You can also follow us on Twitter and connect with us on LinkedIn

Please note due to the Christmas holidays the next issue will be a combined December/January edition in early January 2016.

Back to top