The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) is planning to set up a digital buying process for its commercial agreements (CCS-CAs).
It has begun a procurement for support in building a platform to support the process as part of the Crown Marketplace programme.
Currently, public sector users access the different CCS-CAs for buying different products through a paper based process that the organisation says is complex and hard to use.
It is aiming to transform this into a digital service, with a guided user journey for self-service, and has identified five commercial agreements for the initial development, covering facilities management, management consultancy, legal services, supply teachers and apprenticeship training.
The components are scheduled for implementation in public beta phase between late October and late November. CCS intends to add more but has not yet made a decision about which ones or the relevant dates.
Enabler
A CCS spokesperson said: “The Crown Marketplace programme remains an important enabler for CCS to achieve its long term objectives. The next stage will see us deliver a series of products and services digitally.
“Where it makes sense, we will deliver those products through a common platform, hence our recent activity to combine a series of procurement exercises into a single requirement.”
The organisation has already run a full test phase to understand the service and needs of end users, and an evaluation of the capabilities of software-as-a-service solutions. As part of the alpha phase it is now testing wireframes and business requirements.
It has also identified a need to work closely with the Government Digital Service to understand how to keep the service architecture and design in step with the Digital Marketplace.
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