Policy paper

Crown Commercial Service Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprises (VCSE) Action Plan

Published 25 January 2024

1. Forewords

VCSE Crown Representative statement

In my role as the Crown Representative for the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector (VCSE), I act as an intermediary between government and the charity and social enterprise sectors to champion the Public Services (Social Value) Act and improvements in commissioning and procurement practices. As part of this, I am very keen to work with all government departments to share best practice and to promote the benefits of working with VCSE organisations.

Having worked closely with the Crown Commercial Service (CCS), I am looking forward to supporting CCS making progress with VCSEs and seeing it increase the amount of business they partner with VCSEs on. This action plan builds on previous achievements and will help CCS to deliver on their ambitious plans for VCSE engagement.

I very much look forward to continuing working with CCS to help support them in achieving their targets.

Claire Dove CBE

VCSE Crown Representative, Cabinet Office

CCS VCSE Executive Sponsor - Richard Denney

As the largest public sector buying organisation in the UK, CCS recognises the unique position it holds in being a gateway into the public sector for many of the 250,000 VCSEs across the UK. 

In CCS we understand that the VCSE sector holds a strong position from which to create and deliver social value in public procurement; these organisations are embedded in communities and have expert local knowledge that can be drawn on to create better public services, whilst delivering value back into the communities in which they operate. As the department’s VCSE champion and Commercial Operations Director, I am proud that CCS is publishing one of the first VCSE Action Plans in government.

We understand the VCSE sector faces distinct challenges when bidding for contracts and we are committed to developing practices and approaches that increase their participation. The progress we have made in increasing the participation of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in CCS procurements gives us great confidence that we can enhance the prospects of VCSEs too.

The actions contained in this plan seek to tackle barriers faced by VCSEs, improve sector engagement and make our procurement opportunities easier to navigate for VCSEs. We will regularly review our progress against the plan and welcome continued feedback.

This action plan is an important step in building a strong foundation of VCSE engagement and opportunity across government, and we look forward to continuing this collaborative approach alongside other government departments to create stronger and more diverse supply chains.

Richard Denney

CCS Commercial Operations Director

2. Introduction

VCSEs play a vital role in the delivery of public services. Many VCSEs have intrinsic knowledge of the local communities they serve and are often best placed to deliver social value priorities within those communities.

Central government has committed to diversifying its supply chains alongside ensuring that contracts are awarded on the basis of not only price, but also the supplier’s social impact. This not only provides VCSE organisations with the much deserved recognition for their positive contribution to society, but also ensures the additional social benefits that can be achieved in the delivery of contracts are taken into account.

CCS is a trading fund and Executive Agency of the Cabinet Office and is the biggest public procurement organisation in the UK. We use our commercial and procurement expertise to help buyers across Central Government and Wider Public Sector (local authorities, NHS, police, education providers, and devolved administrations). The collective buying power of our customers, plus our procurement knowledge, means we can get the best commercial deals in the interest of taxpayers.

CCS commercial agreements use competition among suppliers to increase quality and value. In 2022/23 we helped more than 19,000 customers achieve commercial benefits totalling over £3.8bn of public money by using our agreements. CCS is structured into three master categories to enable our category expertise to best support customers.

CCS Structure (categories)

Estates

• Construction
• Facilities Management
• Energy
• Estates Support Services

Corporate

• Financial Services
• Travel, Accommodation and Venues
• Fleet
• Professional Services
• HR and Workforce Services
• Outsourced Services

Technology

• Cloud and Hosting
• Network Services
• Hardware and Software
• Technology Services
• Digital Capability and delivery

Our purpose is to help the UK public sector get better value for money from its procurement of goods and services.

Our ambition is to increase the value that we help the public sector achieve from procurement, by sustainably increasing the depth of our impact and the breadth of our coverage.

Our vision is to be the provider of choice for public sector organisations seeking commercial and procurement solutions.

We will achieve our vision and ambition, by addressing our three strategic priorities: 

• extending our coverage and influence;
• deepening the value CCS adds; and
• enabling better outcomes.

CCS recognises the vital role that VCSEs play in the UK economy and our local communities. It is therefore important that this Action Plan provides VCSEs with the opportunity to help CCS achieve its strategic priorities. To that end, we are committed to improving the awareness of VCSEs both within CCS and amongst our customers, with the aim of increasing VCSE presence on our agreements and reducing barriers to participation.

CCS has recently appointed a VCSE Champion and established a VCSE working group with representation from across a variety of teams within CCS. The purpose of this group is to raise the awareness of VCSEs within our organisation and support the implementation of the actions documented in this Action Plan.

In the next few years we have a unique opportunity to implement the benefits of the Transforming Public Procurement programme. At CCS we will ensure VCSEs are given due consideration when implementing changes to our procurement policies and procedures and will work collaboratively with the Cabinet Office  to sign post  access to Cabinet Office developed training materials, messages and updates on the impacts of Procurement Reforms to VCSEs.

This is the first VCSE action plan that CCS has produced and complements our SME action plan. It will be reviewed annually and updated as necessary.

3. VCSEs in public procurement

a. VCSE definition

The  VCSE sector is a broad spectrum of organisations which comprise what is commonly referred to as ‘civil society’.

Procurement Policy Note 11/20 defines VCSEs as:

any organisation (incorporated or not) working with a social purpose. This ranges from small community-based groups/schemes, through to larger registered charities and social enterprises, public service mutuals and cooperatives that operate locally, regionally and nationally. This term is often interchangeable with the terms ‘third sector’ or ‘civil society’ organisations.

b. Barriers to participation

VCSEs appear to share many of the same barriers to participation as SMEs and it is the below issues that are raised the most often:

• Due to the varying sizes of VCSEs, many face resource issues when bidding for and potentially delivering contracts.
• Lack of experience and knowledge of CCS agreements and terminology can result in decisions to not engage or attempt to bid.
• Some VCSEs may not know where opportunities are advertised or have the capacity to regularly review such places.
• Too many agreements or agreements with overlapping scope can cause problems for VCSEs and cause them to focus on only a small number that they can realistically invest their time into bidding for.
• Response times for bidding and providing evidence of delivery/past performance can also prove problematic if VCSEs are not provided with enough time to operate their business and undertake the necessary work for bidding.

Internally at CCS, VCSEs are often considered alongside SMEs when commercial agreements are designed. While there are certain overlaps between the two, VCSEs have unique requirements and challenges to consider that are not always reviewed as a standard across all commercial teams. This has meant that there are differing levels of engagement with VCSEs across the organisation.

c. VCSEs and CCS

Approximately 10,000 organisations are suppliers on live CCS agreements. Of these, 105 or 1% are VCSEs, supplying goods and services across 22 agreements, including Research and Insights and G-Cloud 13.

Of the 4,000 suppliers who reported business through CCS agreements in 2022/23, 40 were VCSEs. VCSEs represented 1% of all CCS suppliers who reported business. This means VCSEs are as likely to report winning business as other suppliers, but average spend levels tend to be lower.

In 2023-2025, our goal is to increase both the number of VCSE suppliers on our agreements and the number of agreements that feature a VCSE supplier presence with the expectation that this would increase the amount of spend these suppliers receive through CCS agreements.

CCS agreements are also open for VCSEs to use as customers and in 2022/23 our agreements were used by around 2,600 charities to purchase goods and services worth approximately £350m, representing one in eight customers and just over 1% of spend through our agreements.

4. VCSE action plan

To address barriers to participation and develop a foundation of ‘best practice’, in tandem with our SME action plan, CCS has developed objectives to support the VCSE agenda. Our objectives are as follows:

a. Learning and Guidance

Aim:  Ensure that any learning and guidance that CCS produces is appropriate, accessible and relevant to VCSEs and highlights the importance of working with VCSEs to other buying organisations.

How will we achieve this:

• We will work with our Social Value working group and our Marketing and Communications teams to improve the visibility of all VCSE relevant documentation on our website.
• We will engage with our Customer Experience Directorate (CXD), Marketing and Communications team and Commercial teams to include best practice on working with VCSEs in our guidance.
• We will signpost suppliers to relevant guidance and the Cabinet Office learning and development offer for the Transforming Public Procurement programme through newsletters and our website.
• We will collaborate with CXD to increase their confidence when engaging with our customer base about the barriers faced by VCSEs through lunch and learn sessions.

b. Internal Engagement

Aim:  Improve awareness of VCSEs and the barriers they face within CCS

How will we achieve this:

• We will invite Social Enterprise UK (SEUK) to deliver their “Demystifying the VCSE Sector” webinar to CCS staff
• We will create a learning package aimed at Commercial teams that will explain the importance of early engagement with VCSEs and provide advice on how to reduce barriers to participation.
• We will plan a campaign of internal communication to raise awareness of VCSEs across the organisation.
• We will create a space on our intranet (Knowledge Centre) to centralise and make available all information about VCSEs
• We will engage internal teams to raise awareness of VCSEs through lunch and learn sessions, working groups and all hands calls.

c. Engagement with VCSEs

Aim:  Ensure that VCSEs understand CCS as an organisation and how they can engage with us

How will we achieve this:

• We will participate in the VCSE Cross Government Task Force led by Claire Dove.
• We will invite VCSEs to attend our working group to share their experiences and concerns.
• We will provide a feedback platform for tier 1 VCSEs (VCSEs who are directly contracting with CCS via one of our agreements) through regular SRM meetings with our Commercial teams.

d. Visibility of Opportunities

Aim:  To improve the visibility of CCS opportunities for VCSEs.

How will we achieve this:

• We will work with our Commercial teams and other buying organisations to ensure that VCSEs are included in pre-market engagement.
• We will review the visibility of the pipeline on our CCS website and on Contracts Finder/Find A Tender notices to make it easier for VCSEs to see potential opportunities for them to participate in our agreements.

e. Reducing barriers

Aim: Ensure that VCSEs understand the bidding process and compliance requirements to enable them to tender for suitable agreements.

How will we achieve this:

• We will provide VCSEs with a basic guidance document which outlines the bidding process and explains how to obtain a Data Universal Numbering System, or DUNS, number and meet the necessary compliance requirements.
• We will signpost VCSEs to the Government’s new ‘Find a Grant’ Service through our website and guidance documentation.

f. Data

Aim: To improve data accessibility and the accuracy of current and future data held on VCSEs within CCS.

How will we achieve this:

• We will continue to work with SEUK to verify and enrich our data and establish which organisations that CCS works with are VCSEs.
• We will produce reports for colleagues, to show VCSE presence and spend on agreements and highlight trends over time.
• We will review customer spend data to identify where VCSEs are using CCS as customers and how we are serving them.

5. Future Aspirations

The aim of this action plan is to document what we intend to achieve within the next 12 months. However, there are some areas that we recognise need consideration when working with VCSEs but that will take longer than 12 months to influence and demonstrate the impact they have had.

Some of the areas we will be working on but will address more formally in future action plans include the following:

• VCSEs as customers of CCS. This action plan focuses on VCSEs as suppliers to CCS and the UK Public Sector. However many VCSEs are also customers themselves, buying goods and services through CCS agreements. In subsequent years we would like to ensure these organisations are also covered by our action plan and that we can encourage more VCSEs to confidently buy through our agreements and obtain the best value.
• Improving visibility of subcontractors. Most VCSEs who supply to the Public Sector through CCS agreements will subcontract through prime suppliers. At the moment we do not have a consistent view of subcontractors. If we can obtain information on who key subcontractors are then it would improve the accuracy of our data on both VCSEs and SMEs and also enable CCS to identify where engagement is needed.
• Collaborating with Public Sector buying organisations who use our agreements to encourage early engagement and publication of their own pipeline information which would allow VCSEs to plan their resources accordingly.
• Improving access to digital systems for VCSEs. We know our digital landscape is complex and the new regulations allow us an opportunity to review some of our digital offerings and ensure that all users are considered in the design of these.

6. Summary

The importance and benefits of VCSEs to the UK Government are becoming more widely recognised. CCS, through this action plan will ensure that the VCSE agenda gains momentum within our organisation and proactively engage with and seek feedback from VCSEs to enable more of them to do business with us.

We welcome feedback, suggestions or queries and these can be submitted to VCSE@crowncommercial.gov.uk.