History
CPC was created in 1999 as an arm of the purchasing team at The University of Salford. The consortium was developed to fill a gap in the provision of reliable and best-value frameworks for the FE sector. Their services proved to be so useful that the FE sector bought the company in 2009, at which point the CPC achieved charitable status.
Services
CPC have over 90 frameworks that provide value for money including:
- Catering & cleaning
- Minor works
- Staffing
- ICT & MFDs
- Utilities
Benefits
CPC offer their membership services for free to any education institution including colleges, schools, academies, multi-academy trusts and universities. CPC are funded through their supplier agreements whereby the suppliers on a framework will give a small percentage of any revenue they earn through the framework back to CPC as a fee. CPC framework suppliers benefit from this arrangement as they can access over 9500 CPC member institutions that use the frameworks.
CPC harness the collective spending power of their members to drive down costs from suppliers, meaning that CPC can deliver savings that couldn't be obtained through tenders done by individual institutions.
Learn more about Crescent Purchasing Consortium.