New NHS Workforce procurement partnership

Two leaders in the public sector and NHS procurement join forces to deliver health workforce services

Plans for this partnership are progressing well with three frameworks already launched under the new collaboration.

International Recruitment

This framework was the first to be launched to support the NHS and the public sector in its future recruitment strategies. The framework is in response to, and aligned with, recommendations set out for international recruitment in the NHS Long Term Plan and the NHS Interim People Plan.

Flexible Resource Pool – Staff Bank

This framework provides the ability to build a flexible staff bank for both clinical and non-clinical temporary staff. Whilst this is largely for the NHS, access to the framework and its services is available to the whole of the public sector. The framework offers a wide choice of suppliers from small regional businesses to national operators. This framework is the first of its kind to ensure pre-employment assurance is undertaken against NHS Employers Check Standards for all workers employed by an outsourced bank.

Non-Clinical Temporary and Fixed-Term Staff

Launched in July 2019 to replace the previous CCS Non-Medical Non-Clinical framework, it provides access to competitive pricing, with the ability to better use fixed-term appointments and statement of work. It continues to ensure non-clinical workers are subject to NHS Employers check standards.

National Clinical and Healthcare Staffing

This fourth framework will go out to tender in mid August this year. It will provide high quality, temporary, permanent, and fixed-term clinical and healthcare staffing services. It will replace the CCS Multidisciplinary Temporary Healthcare Personnel and the NHS Procurement in Partnership National Clinical Staffing frameworks.

A Workforce Alliance Executive Board has been established with representation from all the partner organisations:

We are delighted to be working together in support of our joint ambition for a sustainable NHS workforce model. The collection of expertise, resources and geographical reach across the alliance brings a willingness to listen and to work in partnership to benefit our customers across the NHS and the wider public sector.

Find out more

Take a look at the framework pages.

Got a question?

Annual Report and Accounts 2018/19 published

The report highlights strong growth in spend through CCS’s agreements, with significant commercial benefits delivered for customers across the public sector, and improvements in customer satisfaction scores.

£15.7bn of public sector spend was channelled through CCS agreements in 2018/19 – an increase of £2.7bn on the previous year, exceeding the organisation’s target by £0.5bn.

Customers have achieved commercial benefits worth £945m, with an additional £22m of benefits achieved through CCS-supported business change initiatives. 

Customer satisfaction scores have also continued to rise, while 1,011 procurements have been carried out for customers with an annual contract value of £946m.

Simon Tse, CEO of CCS said:

‘We’ve had an excellent year, growing the spend through our commercial agreements by over 20% and in turn helping to generate commercial benefits for the public sector of just under £1 billion. So first and foremost I’d like to thank all at CCS for their hard work and commitment.

‘I want us to build on what we have achieved and grow further and faster, to meet our ambition to double spend from the 2017/18 baseline of £13bn over the next 4 years and deliver more commercial benefits than ever.’

Tony van Kralingen, Chair of the CCS Board said:

‘The last year has been one of real achievement for CCS in its important role to help the UK public sector save money when buying common goods and services. 

‘We have made excellent progress against the business plan and the organisation continues to grow at pace. Most notably, we have seen the single biggest year on year increase in spend through our commercial agreements, a strong financial performance and an increase in delivering commercial benefits for customers.’

Performance highlights for 2018/19 include:

  • £15.7bn of public sector spend channelled through CCS commercial agreements
  • £945m of commercial benefits delivered
  • 1,011 procurements including call-offs carried out for customers with an annual contract value of £946m
  • Employee engagement index as measured by Civil Service People Survey increased from 63% in 2017 to 66% in 2018
  • Net Promoter Scores for customer satisfaction over the year reached +48 for Customer Service and +56 for Assisted Procurement

The Annual Report and Accounts are available to read now on GOV.UK.

Suppliers join new technology deal for education

The Education Technology framework, designed by Crown Commercial Service (CCS) in collaboration with the Department for Education, helps schools, colleges and universities to buy ICT equipment and services including hardware, audio-visual equipment and broadband fibre infrastructure.

Customers will also be able to use the agreement to fully kit out new facilities as well as refresh existing kit.

Niall Quinn, Director of Crown Commercial Service’s Technology Pillar, said: ‘Guided by the feedback we have gathered by engaging with schools and the Department for Education, we are proud to offer a practical solution for schools to be able to procure all of their technology needs through one single agreement.’

40 suppliers have been awarded places on the agreement, 78% of them small and medium-sized enterprises (SME).

46% of a total £44m of spend through its predecessor, ICT Services for Education, went to SMEs.

Joskos Solutions were awarded a place on CCS’s ICT Services for Education agreement and Nick Madhavj, the company’s founder and CEO, says it helped them to compete at a national level with some of EdTech’s biggest players.

Nick Madhavj says: ‘To a great degree the ICT Services for Education agreement levelled the playing field, and our results over the last 4 years are testament to that. As a result we’ve scaled the company from being a local London business to now having trusted relationships with multi-academy trusts and schools across the UK. 

‘This has created over 75 new job opportunities and £40m of contract awards, leading to new partnerships with local suppliers across the UK and meaning Joskos ultimately has a greater impact in delivering our core purpose. That enables better outcomes for our learners through confident use of technology in the classroom and beyond.’ 

21 suppliers were named on Lot 1 of the agreement in June. 

The deal runs for 3 years with the potential for a further 12 month extension. 

Find out more about this agreement.

Use our Facilities Management framework to get your sites ready for Autumn

The great British weather…

And although we’re not wishing the summer away, it won’t be long until the days start to shorten and the beautiful autumn colours arrive.

We understand that facilities managers face daily challenges in ensuring your sites are kept to a high standard. So while we can’t control the weather, we can help you plan for seasonal activities, limiting potential autumn threats to ensure that your sites’ facilities are taken care of.

Check out our top tips to help protect your property this autumn

Roofs and gutters

Can your roof withstand our ever changing climate? From high temperatures to heavy rain, make sure your roof is well weathered. Now is the perfect time to check your roof for any loose tiles or slates. Look at your gutters and clear out any debris or leaves which might affect water drainage.

Heating and draught-proofing

The great British summer doesn’t last long and nobody wants to be cold. Get your boiler ready for winter. A well maintained boiler burns less fuel – save money and avoid any breakdowns by getting your boiler inspected and serviced.

Do you have back-up power and emergency generators? No one can predict the UK weather and power cuts. Having a standby generator provides backup power protection during an outage. Different sizes are available to either backup essential circuits or complete coverage for your business. Whether it’s for lighting, computers, heating or security, it’s important to have a backup power plan in place.

Lighting

As our natural daylight reduces, check that you have sufficient outside lights to keep your property well lit. Have you maintained your street lighting? Light levels can decrease due to dirt so keep your fixtures cleaned on a regular basis.

Equally, make sure your indoor lighting is ready for autumn. Lighting isn’t just essential for the obvious reasons but can also contribute to a business’ energy costs. Convert traditional light bulbs to energy efficient lighting and control usage through automated lighting in your building.

Security

With longer nights, keeping your buildings and occupants safe is essential. Make sure your security protections are in place. From mobile security, remote monitoring, manned guarding and technology solutions, there’s lots of ways to ensure you have the most effective security solutions.

Ground maintenance

Don’t wait until autumn to put your ground maintenance programme in place. When leaves start to drop, paved areas can become slippery with leaf algae and mould – use a high pressure washer to keep your paths clear. Trim trees to get rid of any dead branches, prune back hedges and tidy borders. It’s not a jungle out there.

And although we can’t think of winter just yet, check your supplies of rock salt for gritting paths when the weather starts to freeze.

Find out how our team can help today

We can help you save time and money on everything from maintenance to waste management, cleaning to catering services, and mechanical to electrical services.

Our FM frameworks provide access to a wide range of specialist suppliers, offering you more choice without compromising on quality. With our regional lot structure you can procure services locally and tailor your contracts to match your social value priorities.

Whether you require a single year contract or a call off contract for up to 10 years, we can help you drive real value for money for your organisation.

If you would like to find out more about any of the CCS facilities management solutions and how they can support you please get in touch and quote ‘FM’.

Eye Care Services from CCS

Eye care: the benefit that pays for itself

The importance of regular eye tests

An eye examination can do far more than just test visual capabilities. It allows the optician to check the health of the eyes for conditions like glaucoma and cataracts. It also allows them to examine the small blood vessels at the back of the eye. This can help to detect serious health conditions including diabetes, heart disease, tumours and high blood pressure.

Wellbeing for staff

The early detection of serious health conditions obviously has huge implications for the health and wellbeing of staff. Less serious issues like migraines, headaches and dry eyes can, however, also be detrimental to an employee’s performance at work. By treating such problems, eye care can help improve productivity at work. Research shows that employers believe improved health and wellbeing and productivity are the biggest advantages of workplace eye care. This is stated by 42% and 37% respectively*.

Obligations as an employer

Under health and safety regulations covering Display Screen Equipment (DSE), employers are required to provide eye care for all screen users. In the modern workplace this is likely to include the vast majority of employees. Under the rulings, employers must offer organisation funded eye tests and glasses, if required solely for screen use.

Eye care as a benefit

Regardless of whether your employees’ fall under the various health and safety criteria for requiring workplace eye care, it can be of great advantage to all. It can also be a valued employee benefit.

Although organisations may understand that eye care can assess the optical health of their employees, few are aware of the wider health issues that can be picked up.

How CCS can help

If you would like to review your organisation’s eye care provision or set up a service for your employees our Occupational Health Services, Employee Assistance Programmes and Eye Care Services framework can help you:

 

*Research conducted on behalf of Specsavers Corporate Eyecare by Opinium from 17 to 26 July 2018 among a sample of 507 HR decision makers across the UK.

What is a managed service and how can it help you with temporary school staffing?

Did you know there is a way to have a relationship with a single supplier for all of your agency supply needs? This month, Miranda Broadley from the CCS supply teachers team discusses what a managed service is and how your school or multi-academy trust can benefit.

Let’s start with what is a managed service and then I’ll help you explore if it could it be right for you.

Put simply, a managed service means a single supplier manages several temporary staffing agencies on your behalf, so you only have to go to one place to find a worker.

What a managed service provider does

All managed service providers will do the following things for you:

  • be a single point of contact – this means your school or multi-academy trust (MAT) only has to go to one place to find a worker instead of ringing multiple agencies
  • provide structured information and reporting – you will get regular reporting on the agency workforce provided to your school or MAT, which will help you budget for costs and manage workforce planning
  • market intelligence – you can get benchmarking information and market intelligence
  • negotiate with agencies – your managed service provider will negotiate with agencies regarding the markup element they charge you
  • compliance – the managed service provider will be accountable for all of the compliance of the workers they provide to you, giving you peace of mind
  • accuracy of all charges – managed service providers often use a technology system called a vendor management system (VMS) to ensure charges are accurate and timesheets aren’t duplicated
  • audits of agencies – managed service providers audit the agencies for you to ensure adherence to the contract terms
  • handling all invoices – managed service providers can consolidate billing for you
    • this means you can move from having one timesheet and invoice per worker per week, to one consolidated weekly or monthly bill, depending on your needs
    • this will greatly reduce the time you need to spend processing paperwork
  • tiering of agencies based on performance – you can add agencies to your roster and track how well they are performing
    • ensure agencies that perform best get more chances to fill a role
    • this keeps them incentivised to work hard for you
  • management of the temporary workforce – you only have one place to go to discuss a worker matter, your managed service provider

How does it work?

You would contact the managed service provider with details of the role you have available and they would fill it.

The CCS supply teachers deal offers a choice of two different kinds of managed service providers – master vendors (lot 2), and neutral vendors (lot 3).

A master vendor first looks for candidates themselves. If they can’t fill the role for you, they then send the role on to other agencies to fill. A neutral vendor sends the role straight on to their roster of agencies to fill.

How do you know if a managed service is right for you?

If your school, group of schools or MAT spends a lot on supply staff – typically upwards of £500,000 a year – then a managed service might suit you.

That being said, there isn’t a minimum spend threshold before you can access a managed service provider, so if your spend is less and you feel it could be the right option for you, please get in touch to discuss your requirements.

If you are unsure about choosing a managed service straightaway, there is also the opportunity to use the framework’s preferred supplier list through lot 1 and transition to a managed service solution at a later date.

If you choose the managed service option, you will still benefit from all the other features of the supply teachers deal. These include robust background checks on workers, free temp-to-perm transfers after 12 weeks subject to 4 weeks’ notice and bespoke management information on your spend. And as you’d expect, you’ll be able to access the same trusted support from the CCS team whenever you need it.

Getting started

If you want to go down the master vendor route, we advise running a further competition (also sometimes referred to as a mini competition) through lot 2. We’re on hand to support you throughout the process.

The further competition process will help you establish what is important to you and tailor the requirement to meet your needs before you invite suppliers to bid. This may result in suppliers offering you more competitive rates.

Alternatively, if you want a neutral vendor managed service, you can directly award without a further competition as there is only one supplier on lot 3.

Once you have appointed a supplier, it will take on average 12-16 weeks to get set up. We can support you with the roll out across your schools/academies.

Next steps

If you would like to discuss the managed service option in more detail please call us on 0345 410 2222.

You can also fill in our online form or email the team mentioning ‘managed service solutions for supply teachers’ in the comments box or subject line.

See the full details of the supply teachers deal.

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G-Cloud 11 goes live with 4,200 suppliers

  • 4,200 suppliers named on new G-Cloud agreement
  • Over 90% of all suppliers are SMEs
  • £4.79bn spend through G-Cloud since 2012, £2.15bn directly with SMEs

G-Cloud 11 has now been awarded and will go live on the Government’s Digital Marketplace soon.

4,200 suppliers have been awarded places on the agreement with over 90% of them small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). More than 31,000 services will be available for customers to access, subject to a process of additional assurance.

Since 2012, more than £4.79bn of cloud and digital services have been procured by public bodies through G-Cloud, with almost 45% percent of that spend going directly to SMEs.

The agreement gives central government, local councils, NHS Trusts and other public sector bodies a way to purchase cloud-based services such as web hosting from a single, central website.

Niall Quinn, Director of Crown Commercial Service’s Technology Pillar, said:

‘G-Cloud continues to be a major success story for how we drive innovation in the public sector. G-Cloud is all about simplicity, making it as straightforward as possible for customers and suppliers to find each other.’

Triad, an SME based in Godalming, has been a G-Cloud supplier since 2013, originally winning a place on G-Cloud ii. 

Adrian Leer, Managing Director of Triad said:

‘Since winning a place on G-Cloud ii in 2013 we have been successful in winning a number of contracts for government. We have been involved in numerous large programmes of work across government and in January 2019 we were ranked 4th of the digital suppliers to government. To be ahead of some of the largest consultancies in the UK as an SME of 70 staff is incredible.’

G-Cloud is accessed through the Digital Marketplace, created in 2014 by Crown Commercial Service and Government Digital Service to make government procurement easier and more transparent.

To find out more about G-Cloud, visit the Digital Marketplace.

Accessibility is usability: Thinking about all your users

Imagine you need to find something on the internet. You do a quick Google search, find the result you want, click on it and have a look at the website, finding all the information you need. You might watch a video, or click through a series of questions to find the information you’re after.

Now imagine that you have one or more of the following:

Stick figures show how each of these disabilities might look in permanent, temporary and situational scenarios.

A diagram of permanent, temporary and situational disabilities for touch, see, hear and speak, from the Microsoft Design Toolkit.

  • a visual impairment
  • motor difficulties
  • cognitive impairment or learning disabilities
  • deafness or impaired hearing

Imagine that the site you need to use isn’t built so that you can easily access what you need. You can’t hear the video and there are no captions, the buttons are too small for you to easily click, the copy isn’t easy to understand because it uses words you’ve never seen before, or your screen reader can’t read all the text on the site because it’s an image.

This is the reality of at least 1 in 5 people in the UK, and many more who may have a temporary or even situational disability: it’s more common than you may realise.

In the UK there are:

  • 1.5 million people who have a learning disability
  • 7 million people who have dyslexia
  • 2 million people with a visual impairment

Naturally, these are all disabilities which would affect potential users of internet platforms, so we need to make sure that our services are easy for everyone to use, whatever their needs.

a comic book image of a man shovelling snow on the steps outside a school. Children are waiting to get into the building, including a child in a wheelchair. The man says he will clear the ramp of snow once he has finished clearing the stairs for the other children. The child using a wheelchair says that if he clears the ramp, all the children can get in

credit: Michael F Giangreco and Kevin Ruelle

It’s also true that accessible platforms, generally, are well-designed platforms. They’re clear, concise and easy to navigate, making life easier for everyone who needs or wants to use them – as this cartoon demonstrates.

What we’re doing to make the grade

On 23 September 2018 new regulations (the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018) were introduced to make sure that all public sector websites and apps are either built to accessibility standards or will be amended to meet them.

This means that every website and platform with a gov.uk web address needs to be easily accessed, easy to understand and easy to use by:

  • 23 September 2019 – New websites/platforms (built after September 2018)
  • 23 September 2020 – Old websites/platforms (built before September 2018)

To achieve these standards, Crown Commercial Service got help from a supplier of accessibility testing services, Olenick, who are helping us understand what we are doing well, what we need to do better, and how to improve our public-facing sites.

User testing: testing with disabilities

Along with all the technical testing, Olenick worked in partnership with Ulster University to arrange for our sites to be tested with two groups of disabled users, including people with visual impairments and learning difficulties.

The second round of testing worked with testers from NOW Group (a social enterprise in Belfast supporting people with barriers to employment and learning). Their service users include people with all levels of learning difficulty and learning disability, as well as those with autism and Autistic Spectrum Conditions, and they have developed the JAM card and app. The JAM card is designed to allow users to ask for ‘Just A Minute’ of extra patience – a discreet way of telling whoever they are communicating with that they need a little more time.

While of course all our testers were equally important to us, easily the most adorable was Morris

composite image of testers from Ulster University, including Morris the guide dog, a medium sized, golden furred dog.

Testers from Ulster University, with different disabilities on day one of testing, joined by Morris the Guide Dog

the guide dog. Morris was very patient throughout the testing, and even graciously decided to catch up on his sleep to let his companion complete the tests. As a result of Morris’s kind assistance, Olenick are now looking into sponsoring guide dog puppies – something our Newport office has been doing for a while.

Following on from the testing, CCS are hoping to work together with Olenick to set up more fund-raising for guide dogs, including a coffee morning – so it just goes to show, guaranteeing accessibility has more wide-reaching benefits than you might think.

New technology innovation marketplace ‘Spark’ opens

Spark: The Technology Innovation Marketplace has been designed to support cutting edge products and markets that aren’t catered for in traditional commercial agreements.

7 suppliers are already signed up to offer their goods and services, including innovative solutions in AI, the Internet of Things and wearable technology.

Spark will enable customers to use new but proven technologies which can drive public service innovation and cost-savings across the public sector. It is a dynamic purchasing system (DPS), enabling new suppliers to join and add new service offers at any point during the lifetime of the marketplace.

Niall Quinn, Technology Pillar Director at CCS, said: “Spark is the result of a wide-ranging review into how the public sector adopts new technologies. It has been developed to support SMEs through government buying power while stimulating growth in the UK technology sector.

“Because it is a DPS it will be continually open to new suppliers and will have functions built into the system that will help customers and suppliers to match capabilities to their needs.”

Spark was unveiled by the Minister for Implementation Oliver Dowden during the launch of the Government’s Technology Innovation Strategy, in a keynote speech at CogX, The Festival of AI and Emerging Technology, on Monday 10 June.

Find out more

Spark: The Technology Innovation Marketplace is now live for customers. For more information, visit the web page or get in touch with one of our technology experts quoting ‘Spark: The Technology Innovation Marketplace’ in the comments box.

New Logistics & Warehousing commercial agreement from CCS

The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) Document Management and Logistics (DML) Category Team, in association with YPO, are pleased to announce that after consideration of the customer demand we are looking to develop a Logistics & Warehousing commercial agreement.

This creative development will be the first-ever commercial agreement in this marketplace for public sector. We have issued a PIN notice to initiate interaction with the market to understand the offerings, advancements and future innovations and we are presently inviting our colleagues within the Central Government and the Wider Public Sector to offer us help to ensure we create and deliver solutions that meet both your present and future requirements.

Get involved in our engagement forum

We’re inviting you to unite with us directly from the earliest starting point of this procedure to help shape the design and scope of this understanding. Notwithstanding the scale or size of your storage and distribution needs, we would exceptionally value your contribution to:

  • The development of a fit for purpose, strong, commercially viable and exceedingly competitive agreement that is appropriate for all
  • Utilising the vast knowledge and experience of this market, and help us find out where we can gain from previous experiences
  • The advancement of commercial benefits that can be acknowledged through a robust specification of business needs

By tuning in to your needs and considering a highly effective mix of suppliers that drive competition, this agreement is intended to offer you great value for money while guaranteeing you have a completely EU compliant route to the market. With such a fantastic opportunity we welcome you to our initial engagement forums with the goal that we can together shape this one of a kind Logistics & Warehousing commercial agreement.

The first of the engagement forums will be hosted at Crown Commercial Service

8th Floor, The Capital, Old Hall Street, Liverpool, L3 9PP

Note down the dates for the forum:

  • Thursday 11th July

Other dates and venues will be released shortly.

Want to find out more?

Register for a place at one of the forums or ask us a question by filling in our online form quoting ‘engagement forums’

Find out more about this agreement

Call 0345 410 2222