Crescent Purchasing Consortium (CPC)

Crescent Purchasing Consortium (CPC) is a one-stop procurement shop, with a mission of being the procurement partner of choice for the education sector.

In April 2024, CPC, Tenet Education Services and the CPL Group were combined to form a new-look CPC brand, offering frameworks, consultancy, training and support, together in one place.

What is Crescent Purchasing Consortium?    

Crescent Purchasing Consortium is a 10,000+ strong member community that helps educational institutions around the United Kingdom purchase products and services, saving its members time and effort, while opening avenues for potential cost savings through supplier competition and collective buying power.

CPC is free to join and there are a whole host of added benefits when you become a member, including 80+ education sector frameworks, with 17 recommended by the DfE - helping our institutions make smarter purchases when procuring a wide range of goods and services.

CPC offers purchasing frameworks, dynamic purchasing systems (DPS) and procurement consultancy services for schools, academies, colleges, universities and other educational organisations, helping make procurement quicker, easier and safer, as the lengthy tender process has already been carried out, in compliance with UK Public Contracts Regulations.

You can obtain quotes from our selection of fully vetted suppliers by using our online quote tools and our in-house team of procurement professionals can offer a variety of support.

Crescent Consultancy

If you need help running a tender, or require a managed procurement service, our expert education sector procurement consultancy division is equipped to assist you.

The Crescent Consultancy team (previously known as Tenet Education Services) can provide on-site and off-site procurement services and a whole range of different support, including:

Managed procurement services:

• Spend analysis and efficiency reviews, including savings opportunities
• Contracts register development
• Procurement mentoring
• Procurement policy and procedure review
• Interim procurement service
• Contract management services
• Merger support
• Compliant tendering
   

On demand tendering services:

• Support for all categories of spend
• Cleaning and catering tendering
• Building cleaning and catering consultancy
• Tender publication service
   

Our aim is to fulfil the potential of your service contracts, so why not contact Crescent Consultancy today and find out how we can help you?

Giving Back

One of the key aspects that makes Crescent Purchasing Consortium an attractive procurement partner is that, by using our services, you are helping to give back to the wider education sector.

Each year, CPC's Board of Trustees reviews the level of reserves our charity has, and any surpluses are reinvested into the education sector via our flagship 'Giving Back' initiative.

To date, more than £1.56 million has been designated for reinvestment in the form of various projects, with the largest amount being used specifically for awarding non-refundable grants to CPC members. So far, approximately £750,000 of grants has been given back to 134 institutions, spanning schools, academies, colleges and universities around the United Kingdom.

Hopwood Hall College, St. John Rigby College, Kendal College and Calderdale College have all benefited from CPC’s Giving Back funding - visit our website to view films that demonstrate the positive impact this has had for students at the start of their professional careers.

Crescent Learning

As part of our charity's objective to advance education and research in procurement within the education sector, our dedicated learning section, Crescent Learning, has created a range of fully funded training courses, resources, templates and guidance for CPC members to make use of.

CPC members can enjoy these benefits via Crescent Learning:

• Saving time and money
• Improving performance
• Expanding competency
• Gaining a greater understanding of procurement within the education sector
• Access to a community of like-minded sector professionals with networking opportunities
   

A big year for procurement

Procurement Act 2023 heralds the biggest change in public procurement for a generation and CPC has established a new procurement taskforce to keep on top of the changes, as well as helping members and stakeholders prepare via a dedicated Procurement Portal.

CPC will continue to be at the forefront of procurement in the education sector and our procurement taskforce will take us, and you, on a journey over the coming months, revising processes and documentation to align with new regulations published by the UK Government.

Want to find out more?

Find out how Crescent Purchasing Consortium can help you by getting in touch today.

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