Crescent Purchasing Consortium

The only consortium owned by Further Education, providing the FE and Academies sectors with value for money contracts across the UK

Who Are We?

The Crescent Purchasing Consortium (CPC) is owned by and run in the main on behalf of the Further Education Sector. The CPC operates under a Board containing four College Finance Directors, the Chair of the FE Directors of Finance Group, Peter Brewer (Managing Director of the CPC), a representative from the procurement team at the Association of Colleges, a Purchasing Advisory Group elected member of procurement staff from an institution and an Institution's Principal.

The income generated from CPC collaboration will be invested into facilitating better procurement in FE institutions.

Eligibility for CPC Membership

The following categories of Institutions are able to take advantage of the free of charge membership of the CPC. Please assist with our membership drive wherever possible by referring non member institutions to the CPC if they fit in any of the categories listed.

England

  • FE Colleges
  • FE Sixth form colleges
  • Academies
  • Specialist and special needs colleges
  • Schools with 6th forms
  • Adult education colleges
  • Private and Independent colleges (FE only)

Scotland

  • FE Colleges
  • Schools with 6th forms
  • Specialist and special needs colleges
  • Private and Independent colleges (FE only)

Wales

  • FE Colleges (with the approval of the Welsh Assembly consortia)
  • Specialist and special needs colleges
  • Private and Independent colleges (FE only)

Northern Ireland

  • 6 Northern Ireland FE Colleges

Help For Members

View all Help Available

Documents & Policies

We provide a wide range of documents for our members such as template policies, framework guidance and National Audit Office reports.

Visits from the CPC

The CPC carries out free visits to individual member institutions to help and assist their purchasing team ...

Join the Discussion

The CPC Communicator is an email list created for use by CPC members to communicate with each other and to provide a means of support and advice from staff in a similar purchasing position.

Case Studies

  1. Southerns Office Interiors Case Studies

    Thanks to its partnership with the CPC, Southerns has completed a number of high profile projects with its members. Recently Southerns completed the supply and installation of all the furniture at both Newcastle Under Lyme and South Cheshire new build Colleges totalling in excess of £1.7m and 20,000 items.

  2. How MyPC Computer Booking System Has Been Implemented At Chesterfield College

    MyPC is a computer booking and access management solution offered by Info Technology Supply Ltd.

View All Case Studies »

Contact Us

If you are interested in your institution becoming a member or would like to find out more information about the CPC, please contact us by telephone on 0161 295 6729 or by email to cpc-finance@salford.ac.uk.

Go to our full Contact Details »

Recently Awarded Contracts

The latest EU framework contracts which have been awarded by the CPC are as follows:

Forthcoming Contracts

For those interested in becoming a supplier to CPC, full details of forthcoming and current tenders are available on the CPC section of the In-Tend website. Suppliers may also confirm their interest by registering on the In-Tend site.

Where our Members' annual group spend exceeds the EU threshold of £156,442 (2009 threshold), we are obliged to advertise the contract in the Official Journal of the European Union.

Details regarding existing frameworks, including supplier names and dates at which the frameworks expire, can be found in the EU Directives page.

Upcoming Events

Feb 21

iPad Inspires

Mar 14

iPad Inspires

View All Events »

EU Directives

EU institutions are required to comply with EU tendering directives and it is our job, as your purchasing consortium, to fully inform our members of EU purchasing requirements and to encourage all members to fully comply with the Directives.

Part of the offering of the consortium is to tender contracts through the EU to give full cover to our members but we are aware that some members utilise quotations from our EU tendered suppliers and then offer contracts elsewhere.

Read more about EU Directives »