Invisible Disabilities Week – my experience of hearing loss

When Julius Caesar said ‘lend me your ears’ I would probably have heard an instruction to ‘send me more beers’.

My severe hearing loss means that I often mishear what has been said, sometimes with rather humorous results; other times, less so.

Crown Commercial Service teams are marking ‘Invisible Disabilities Awareness Week’, which aims to educate and bring awareness of invisible disabilities – in my case, hearing loss.

Hearing loss is more common than people may realise: there are over 12 million people (1 in 5) in the UK with some degree of hearing loss, which means that most of us will encounter someone in this position in our daily lives. 

Most of my immediate colleagues are aware that I have severe hearing loss – in fact I have over 70% loss of hearing in both ears. This is something which has got progressively worse as time has gone on, to the point where, just over 2 years ago, I was seriously questioning whether I could continue in my current role.

My watershed moment

The watershed moment for me was sitting in an external meeting of very senior commercial directors at which I struggled to hear any of what was said.

This left me feeling incredibly distressed: I wanted to perform effectively in my role and I knew I could, if only I could hear what was being said. I can recall all too clearly the humiliation of not being able to answer questions simply because I couldn’t follow the conversation and the feeling that I was letting CCS and myself down. 

What was more frustrating was that I had let the meeting organiser know that I had hearing difficulties, yet no adjustments were made.

Sadly, my experience is all too common but, with the right support and awareness, the outlook can, and should, be so much better.

A problem compounded

Deaf people can be around twice as likely to suffer from psychological problems such as depression and anxiety, with research suggesting that this stems from feelings of isolation.

Social and work situations can be both exhausting and daunting for anyone with hearing loss, as they struggle to try to follow conversations which are often in a noisy setting and all too often simply give up.

We see the exasperation on the faces of those around us as we struggle to hear, and they don’t know how to be heard.

People who are hearing-impaired face considerable challenges. They experience and navigate the world differently from those with perfect hearing. To gain an understanding of the difficulties they may face, here are some day-to-day situations that become more challenging when little or nothing is audible.

  1. Public announcements

Remember the last time you were at the airport and, over a loudspeaker, you were told boarding was in progress, or that the flight was delayed? Public address systems notify us of what’s going on all the time, but a hearing-impaired individual probably won’t get the message or, just as bad, might misunderstand the message.

  1. Slow talkers

When someone realises they’re interacting with a hearing-impaired person, they often switch to a slower form of speech. While it’s done with the best intentions, it can actually hinder lip reading. Over time, many hearing-impaired people have learned to understand words spoken naturally, so slowing it down can result in miscommunication.

  1. Being in the dark

Whether it’s a dimly-lit room or a noisy, dark club, the absence of light makes it difficult for the hearing-impaired to engage with others. They generally rely on visual clues and stimuli, such as lip-reading or sign language, so darkness poses a challenge.

Taking action

Fast forward two years and the situation for me is very different.

This is very much due to the strong support from a line manager who, recognising that I was struggling, set about seeing what support CCS could offer. I am fortunate too that I am part of a team who are willing to make the effort to understand how best to communicate with me.

These days, now that my team are aware of my hearing difficulties (and thanks to whizzy new bionic ears!) active participation in conversations and meetings is much easier. Social settings are improved too and, for the first time in over 20 years, I can hear films without subjecting my very patient husband to me asking ‘what did they say?’ every 5 minutes.

I would urge anyone who is struggling with any degree of hearing loss to seek help. It can’t be made perfect (the technology does not yet exist to restore hearing) but it can, with the right support and awareness which I have been fortunate to receive, be so much better.

Thankfully, there is a great deal of information available to support those with hearing loss and those who live and work with them. If you can take maybe 10 minutes to read through some of the tips for communicating with the hard of hearing, you could make all the difference to how they interact with you and how they feel about themselves.

Useful resources

Action Hearing Loss offers some helpful information for the hearing-impaired and those who support them.

The Invisible Disabilities Week website carries lots more information about seminars and events for Invisible Disabilities Week.

Reduce the impact of COVID-19 on employee health and wellbeing

From dining table desks to lockdown loneliness, from homeschooling to workplace worry,  are you prepared to respond to your employee health and wellbeing needs?

“The new normal” is a phrase that has been much talked about over the last few months. Yet we don’t actually know what the end result will look like, with constantly evolving measures and ongoing uncertainty of what we are yet to face in the fight against COVID-19. What we do know is what is happening around us in the here and now, and that it is presenting challenges to workers and employers alike. Protect the health and wellbeing of your employees, wherever they are working, and effectively manage current – and reduce future – absenteeism. Consider these 3 important issues:

Workstation assessments

With so many employees working from home, concerns are rising amongst employers about their working conditions, particularly as agile working looks set to become commonplace in the longer term. Workstation assessments are regularly undertaken in office environments. But, competing priorities and social distancing restrictions mean that many employees have not yet had an assessment of their home workstation. 

A rise in musculoskeletal injuries is already anticipated amongst home workers, many of whom have spent much of the last few months leaning over a coffee table or slumped on their couch for 8 or more hours of the working day. 

Burnout

Burnout is a very real risk. People Management recently reported that a poll conducted by Robert Walters found 47% of managers thought their employees could be at risk of burnout, due to changes in working patterns and the rise of e-presenteeism brought on by the pandemic.  

Mental health and wellbeing

Not only are employers feeling increased pressure to fulfil their duty of care regarding the physical welfare of their employees, they are also tasked with supporting their mental wellbeing. The Office for National Statistics has recently reported that almost double (19.2%) the number of adults are estimated to be experiencing feelings of depression compared to pre-pandemic (9.7%). This offers insight into just one of the many conditions that can be a daily struggle for so many of us. 

Your buying decisions have the power to make work better for your employees

Through our Occupational Health, Employee Assistance Programmes and Eye Care framework we have suppliers who have developed innovative solutions to these problems. They are on hand ready to support you. 

Our suppliers were already working on the digital delivery of their services pre-coronavirus. During the pandemic they have had the opportunity to show just how effective their solutions can be to support employees, even outside of the traditional workplace. This includes providing virtual workplace and health surveillance assessments, online counselling and, of course, home working for their own employees to ensure continuity of service.

We know that the needs of different public and third sector organisations are rarely the same. This is why our framework gives you the flexibility to access a full occupational health and employee assistance programme service or just the particular service(s) that you need. Contracts can be put in place by direct award or further competition, enabling you to get exactly what you need to meet your specific requirements. 

Invest in protecting your staff – and your organisation – and ensure a healthy future for everyone. 

Everything you need to support your employee health and wellbeing can be found on the framework web page. We’re also on hand to offer advice and guidance if you need it:

Modern slavery in the workforce

On 26 March 2020 the UK government’s modern slavery statement was published. It sets out the steps CCS and other government departments have taken to identify, address and prevent modern slavery in the workforce and supply chains. 

As the timing was just days after the country went into lockdown, you can be forgiven if it passed you by. However, we absolutely must not let the importance of stamping out modern slavery pass us by. 

The Prime Minister says in the statement: 

If we are serious about tackling this increasingly pervasive evil then words alone are not enough – we have to take active steps to drive it out of our supply chains.

So, I want to draw your attention to the statement, and take this opportunity to discuss the active steps CCS is taking. I also want to outline how we can help you take your own active steps to tackle modern slavery in the workforce.

What is modern slavery?

Let’s start with a quick summary of what is meant by modern slavery.

Modern slavery is a complex crime that takes many different forms. For example, slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour and human trafficking. It is a serious and organised crime affecting men, women and children, and can be present in all sectors of business. 

What the law currently says

Public sector organisations rely on a wide range of suppliers for the provision of essential public services. We expect the highest standards of business ethics from our suppliers and their supply chain. They must comply with all the applicable human rights and employment laws in the jurisdictions in which they work. This includes complying with the provisions of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which consolidates previous legislation and introduces new measures.

As the government’s statement acknowledges:

Modern slavery is so pervasive that it is likely to exist in the supply chains of the goods and services purchased by governments across the globe, from the technology we buy to the construction projects we fund.

Under the act procurement regulations have been amended to make certain modern slavery offences, such as child labour and human trafficking, grounds for the mandatory exclusion of bidders from public procurements. 

Section 54 includes provisions which make suppliers accountable for slavery and labour abuses in their whole operations, including their supply chains.

Suppliers who have a turnover of £36 million (or more) and carry out their business (or part of their business) in the UK are required to publish a modern slavery statement on their website and update it annually. The statement must include details of their organisation’s modern slavery policies and due diligence processes, and provide details of the steps taken to assess and manage any risks in their business and supply chains. It should also be approved by their board, signed by a director and be easily accessible from the home page of the organisation’s website.

The active role of GCA

Our role is to ensure our framework suppliers understand the risks of modern slavery in supply chains, and therefore take appropriate action to identify and address the risks, with particular focus on supporting victims of modern slavery.  

We have gone further than the standard procurement regulation requirements. The selection questionnaire we have been using since 2016 covers the provisions of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, and the Public Sector Contract which has been in use since 2017 includes a corporate social responsibility schedule. This requires suppliers to:

  • meet with the standards set out in the Supplier Code of Conduct, which include requirements to comply with the Modern Slavery Act 2015
  • include anti-slavery and human trafficking provisions in their contracts
  • implement policies and procedures to identify and prevent modern slavery occurring in their supply chain
  • prepare an annual statement setting out the steps they have taken to tackle modern slavery in any part of their business or supply chain.

We are also playing an active role in developing the government’s strategy and policies to tackle modern slavery in government supply chains. We are working with the Home Office and Cabinet Office, in consultation with the cross-government Modern Slavery and Procurement Implementation Group. Together, we have developed best practice guidance and a Modern Slavery Assessment Tool to tackle and eliminate potential modern slavery abuses in our framework supply chains. 

Risk assessments

We carried out a detailed risk assessment of all our commercial agreements in 2019. This identified 26 frameworks as having a high or medium risk of modern slavery occurring. All suppliers on these frameworks, which account for around £2.8 billion of annual spend, were asked to complete the assessment tool in autumn 2019. We are discussing the results with suppliers, and will be monitoring implementation of the recommendations. 

Why workforce frameworks are high risk

Workforce contracts have a high risk of modern slavery abuses as the supply chains have a number of core characteristics that place workers at heightened risk of being exploited.

Complex employment relationships with a reliance on agency, outsourced or subcontracted workers add a layer of separation between employers and workers.  

The employment of low-skilled migrant workers, often via recruitment agencies, is thought to create the perfect conditions for labour abuses to thrive, and in some cases to develop into extreme exploitation. 

Unscrupulous employers are able to take advantage of vulnerabilities without fear of reprisal, as workers are unable or unaware of how to enforce their rights.  

This can include being paid less than minimum wage, removal of holiday allowance or any other entitlement as laid out in the Agency Worker Regulations, through to more heinous contraventions of employment laws, such as dangerous working conditions.

Tackling the risk

We have taken a risk based approach to tackling modern slavery in the workforce supply chain. This includes:

  • mandating workforce framework suppliers to complete the assessment tool, which asks about the processes they have in place to identify and address modern slavery risks 
  • requesting information on how the supplier manages their supply chain to address the modern slavery risk, including details on any systems and processes they have in place to do this  
  • reviewing their modern slavery statements to see what risks the supplier has already identified  
  • researching to see if there have been any previous reports of issues with the supplier through audit reports and the media
  • establishing more information on the labour force in the supply chain – does it involve a high level of manual labour, low-skilled labour or where there are high levels of poverty?
  • requiring suppliers to carry out their own due diligence, requesting evidence of what information has been included and how risk has been assessed 

Each supplier is provided with a report from the tool listing recommendations for remedial action, where there are existing deficiencies in systems and processes.  

We discuss the outputs with suppliers and a corrective plan of action is requested, if any deficiencies are found to be significant. This forms part of the standard contract management process throughout the life of the contract.

In extreme cases, terminating a contract for reasons linked to modern slavery can – and will – be considered where the issues continue to occur and the supplier is unwilling to co-operate and change.For new procurements this process is included from the outset as part of the procurement selection and award process, and subsequent contract management.

Empowering you to make better recruitment decisions

As responsible and ethical organisations, all public sector bodies should have a modern slavery policy in place and take a risk-based approach to tackling modern slavery in the supply chains that they manage or use.  

By recruiting temporary workers through a CCS workforce framework you can be certain that supply chains have been assessed to a standard over and above the current public sector procurement regulations. This gives you greater assurance that any potential for modern slavery abuses have been identified and are being managed.

Next steps

For more advice and guidance on tackling modern slavery in the workforce email us or fill in our short online form and one our commercial experts will be in touch. 

You can also explore our full range of workforce frameworks on our agreements page.

Further policy advice and guidance on modern slavery can be found on GOV.UK. 

Global travel made simple for the public sector

Whether your organisation’s travel is mainly domestic, or if you have more complex needs that include booking travel from a number of different countries, our new commercial agreement covers all of your requirements.

Regardless of the simplicity or complexity of your requirements, our new Public Sector Global Travel and Venue Solutions (PSGTVS) commercial agreement provides a one-stop-shop solution, meaning you can have a single supplier managing all of your travel and venue needs.

The basics

The new agreement is structured into 2 solutions: 

  • Solution A

Has been designed to cater to customers who have booking needs in the UK and also require services to be provided locally in other countries around the globe.

This is a single-supplier solution, provided by FCM Travel Solutions, that uses a direct award only. 

To access this solution, you can engage directly with FCM to complete your call-off contract or, if you require help and support, contact our experts.

  • Solution B

This solution gives customers a one-stop-shop for all their travel and venue sourcing requirements. 

There is a choice of 3 suppliers – Clarity, Click Travel and Travel Planet – meaning this solution can be accessed in 2 ways. Customers can simply direct award to their chosen supplier or run a further competition amongst the suppliers.

For further information on whether to direct award or go to further competition please read our customer guide.

Book with ease

As many people are confident booking their own, personal, travel requirements online, most organisations prefer their staff to self-serve and book online for their business travel as well. 

The 4 suppliers on this agreement each provide an online tool that allows users to find and book most of their air, rail, hotel and venue requirements.  

You can contact any of the suppliers to request a demonstration of their tools by visiting the Products and Suppliers section of our PSGTVS webpage.

Commercial benefits   

Joining the PSGTVS framework opens up the potential for significant savings. We estimate the average customer will save up to 13% across their total spend. 

In addition to this commercial benefits, using this framework gives you access to flexible terms and conditions and a bespoke service.

This means no matter how complex your requirements, you can be sure of receiving a straightforward solution, tailored to your needs, that you can rely on. 

Want to know more?

We are running a series of webinars dedicated to PSGTVS, giving you the opportunity to learn more about the agreement, our suppliers and ask questions of our category experts. 

You can now register your interest for our first event, where our travel team will launch the agreement, on Wednesday 14 October 2020 at 10:00am. 

Throughout November, we will be running weekly webinars with our new PSGTVS suppliers. Follow us on social media and visit our webpage for more details.

 

Help us meet the public sector debt recovery challenge by shaping our Debt Resolution Services agreement

I’ve been in debt for about 19 years – though, to clarify, I mean working within government and private sector debt-related roles! And, at the risk of stating the obvious, the last year of that has been unprecedented. 

Record sums of money have been paid out by the government to enable businesses to survive and employees to retain their jobs. At the same time, revenues have declined across the public sector, from tax and business rates to the repayment of overpaid benefits and unpaid fines.

Personal debt is forecast to rise, as is unemployment and the number of people in debt with mental health illness while affordable credit could become even more scarce. People and businesses not used to falling into arrears have done so and will continue to suffer short-term financial shock. 

We need a plan, not just for the short term, but for the knock-on effects that will take shape over the coming years.

The way forward

The public sector needs to be supportive, analytical, and agile in our approach. To do this we need;

  • to understand individual circumstances and respond. 
  • data and information to do that and to help make the right decisions on how we preserve the public purse while serving the public. 
  • innovative digital multi-channel contact strategies able to reflect preference, accessibility requirements and emerging trends. 
  • to protect our supply chains, ensuring they remain sustainable, innovative, and able to deliver. 
  • to consult the advice sector and leverage their insight to create the right solutions to these challenges. 

Even better, we need to understand the warning signs to enable us to prevent and detect fraud and error. In doing so, we can prevent people from moving into debt wherever possible.

This, in essence, was the mission statement that our public sector customers set us for developing a new CCS commercial agreement for Debt Resolution Services. The agreement will provide collections, data solutions, litigation, enforcement, spend analytics and recovery, solutions to the public sector from October 2021. 

It will bring together a range of expert suppliers from each area of the market to deliver private sector debt services, generating much-needed income, but in a fair and affordable way. And crucially, it will deliver value for money and tangible social value.

To enable this we are creating a simple route to market that incorporates best-in-class standards across each service that we will contract.

We are now engaging with a broad group of stakeholders across the public, advice, and private sectors to learn lessons, gather insight, and develop the new agreement collaboratively. 

Join the discussion

If you would like to help shape the DRS agreement or have similar challenges and require a solution we’d like to hear from you.

Please get in touch via email and our category team will be in touch.

Crown Commercial Service and Hewlett Packard Enterprise sign MoU to enhance the cloud experience

The new MoU makes it easier and more affordable for you to reduce complexity when it comes to cloud technology, while also boosting innovation and offering cost efficiencies to your digital transformation efforts. 

Through the new agreement, you can take advantage of the agreed discounts of between 8-12% on a range of HPE technologies, including HPE Greenlake cloud services, Aruba Enterprise networking and security offerings, as well as HPE’s storage and compute technologies.

By defining competitive pricing, as well as terms and conditions for the public sector, the MoU makes it easier, faster and more cost effective for public sector organisations to access vital infrastructure and technologies needed to transform the way they do business. 

Establishing new routes to market and supporting the digital ambitions of organisations across the entire public sector has been a strategic deliverable for CCS and this MoU marks a great milestone in delivering value and operational choice. It has been signed as part of the ‘One Government Cloud Strategy’. This further strengthens the relationship between HPE and the UK government.

For further information on HPE solutions, please email HPE. To speak to a member of our team, please complete this form.

PPNs: helping your organisation and the UK economy

It’s been a little over three months since the Cabinet Office, in response to coronavirus (COVID-19), put in place four powerful procurement policy notes (PPNs), 01/20, 02/20  03/20 and 04/20, to help the public sector buy urgently needed goods and services and accelerate early payment to suppliers.  

Now, more than ever, it is vital that the public sector leads by example and speeds up their payments to suppliers to improve cash flow and save jobs. 

The Cabinet Office, in partnership with CCS, is leading and empowering the public sector to make greater use of procurement cards as set out in PPN 03/20, which include a suite of physical, lodge (where card details are stored in the payment system) and virtual cards. 

Card payments already represent more than 50% of all payment methods* and this is expected to increase year-on-year. Key benefits include:

  • improve departments’ processes and efficiency
  • fast payment to suppliers 
  • ensures robust controls are in place 

The public sector has a critical role to play in supporting businesses through the COVID-19 pandemic – we must accelerate payments to suppliers to improve cash flow. Procurement cards are a key way of doing this, enabling instant payment for goods and services. They bring additional benefits to both account departments and to vendors by improving control and simplifying processes. Contracting authorities should make sure they are issued to the relevant staff and the correct card limits set.

Gareth Rhys-Williams, Government Chief Commercial Officer

At CCS, we can help organisations across the public sector benefit from the power of these PPNs and strengthen the UK economy as a result.

To find out more about procurement cards, visit our framework page or get in touch with our category experts at info@gca.gov.uk

*UK Finance Market Summary, June 2019

G-Cloud 12 framework goes live

The framework was due to be announced earlier this year but had been delayed by CCS to allow customers and suppliers to focus resources on responding to the coronavirus pandemic.

G-Cloud 12 offers public sector organisations a straightforward and compliant way to purchase cloud based services, such as hosting, software, and support. This is provided through an online catalogue called the Digital Marketplace. Services now include service definition documents, which provide detailed service information to support evaluating services – empowering you to make better buying decisions.

Benefits of using G-Cloud 12 include:

  • straightforward contract award using a quick and easy 6 step process on the Digital Marketplace
  • transparent prices – catalogue shows suppliers, services, prices and supplier terms and conditions 
  • access to the latest innovation and technologies
  • ability to move away from long term contracts – maximum duration is 24 months, which is then easily refreshed or can be extended by 2 x 12 month periods
  • includes clauses to help you address both modern slavery and corporate social value

5,224 suppliers have each been awarded a place on the agreement. Over 38,000 services will be available for customers to access, subject to a process of additional assurance. This is a growth of over 25% from G-Cloud 11. 

Over 91% of the overall suppliers on G-Cloud 12 are small and medium sized enterprises (SME). Of the suppliers new to G-Cloud 12, over 80% are micro and small organisations, demonstrating that G-Cloud continues to offer opportunities to suppliers of all sizes.

Services offered on G-Cloud 11 will no longer appear on the Digital Marketplace from 28 September 2020, however G-Cloud 11 will only expire on 18 December 2020 to allow incomplete procurements to be finalised.

G-Cloud 12 services will appear from 28 September 2020 onwards, as suppliers sign their framework agreements. As such we recommend you regularly check the Digital Marketplace for services for the first few weeks after launch.

Memorandum of Understanding (MoU’s) have also been negotiated to enhance commercial value across a wide range of cloud suppliers and services procured through G-Cloud 12. Discounts and value added services can be applied on application.

To find out more about G-Cloud 12, visit the framework page and the Digital Marketplace, or join a customer webinar. For any questions about buying through the framework or to request access to an MoU’s pricing model, get in touch. 

Discover our new Artificial Intelligence Dynamic Purchasing System

Across many organisations within the public sector, customers are looking to embrace change and future-proof their business by implementing AI technologies. These emerging technologies offer a number of benefits to customers such as helping to better manage and use data, make public services more accessible, and improve diagnosis in healthcare. 

As the UK’s largest public procurement organisation, we have the ability to offer you access to cutting edge technologies – giving you the power to transform your digital services. By working collaboratively alongside The Office of Artificial Intelligence, we are pleased to announce that our new Artificial Intelligence DPS is now live. 

If your organisation is new to AI, you will be able to buy services through a discovery phase, to get an understanding of how you could benefit from AI could benefit you organisation. If you  already have experience of using AI, you can buy licensing, customisation and support directly from suppliers. If you’re looking for both of those things, you will have access to end-to-end partnerships.

Ethical development of AI and true innovation across the public sector has also been taken into account when developing this DPS, providing opportunities to accelerate the adoption of new technologies within government, and improve services for citizens throughout the UK.

This DPS provides an opportunity for suppliers, including startups and SMEs to look at what a department wants in an AI solution, find out how they can meet those requirements, and join the DPS throughout the agreement duration. This will be of particular benefit to the health sector, where an AI technology needs to meet regulatory approvals such as clinical safety and efficacy data towards a CE marking. Health and care bodies can also ask their approved suppliers to join this DPS.

CCS Technology Director, Patrick Nolan:

“Artificial Intelligence offers exciting opportunities to modernise public services, raise productivity and increase efficiency. This will ultimately save the taxpayer money, help to build a skilled workforce and create better public services.

“This new agreement will enable the public sector to access the latest in AI technology, including access to technology for medical screening and diagnosis, chatbots to drive up the quality of customer experience, and virtual assistants.”

Digital Minister, Caroline Dinenage:

“The UK is a leader in emerging technologies and I am pleased our AI procurement guidelines helped shape the Crown Commercial Service’s new system which will address ethical considerations when organisations buy artificial intelligence services for use in the public sector.

“The tool aims to boost safe and fair innovation alongside improved public services to people up and down the country.”

Let us add power to your procurement. If you would like to find out more about our new AI DPS, you can visit our website or join our customer webinar on 27 October at 10:30am to learn more from our experts – register here.

Or, to speak to a member of our team, please complete our online form quoting ‘Artificial Intelligence’ or call us on 0345 410 22222. 

Take control of your land and rural estate with unique solutions from CCS

Our Training Estates Services agreement provides unique solutions to help you take control of your land and rural estate, alongside a broad spectrum of Facilities Management (FM) services such as: 

  • maintenance
  • catering 
  • cleaning 
  • specialised services such as Training Areas and Ranges Operation and Management (TAROM).

Developed in partnership with the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO), the agreement will run for four years (until March 2024) and has five awarded suppliers.

However, the agreement is not reserved for defence-related organisations – it is open to the whole of the public and third sector. Offering a wide range of estate management services, unique to CCS, the agreement could prove particularly beneficial to organisations that have specialised land and rural estate management requirements.

With land management services you can manage lettings including all types of agreements where third parties have use (permanent or otherwise) of your estate. 

With rural estate management, suppliers are able to create an estate management plan for each of your premises, identifying current management policies and practices and set out how they will maintain and enhance the rural estate for you. Objectives such as sustainability, managing the needs and concerns of landowners and managing the estate in line with best practice are at the heart of this plan. You can even arrange to let or licence any asset to maximise the income generated from the establishment via this service.

In addition to a comprehensive rural estate planned preventative maintenance service, suppliers also offer services in the following areas: 

  • forestry (including forestry harvesting income generation);
  • ditching and land drainage;
  • pest control;
  • landscaping and grass cutting;
  • road and track maintenance;
  • snow and ice clearance; and
  • protection of habitats, environmental management and Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

Do you need to run a compliant, safe and sustainable estate? To find out more get in touch with us at info@crowncommercial.gov.uk and quote ‘Training Estate Services’ in your message.


If you have any additional estates requirements not covered in this article,  take a look at our Estates Professional Services Agreement.