Crown Commercial Service (CCS) have secured themselves a “Best” rating in the latest Commercial Continuous Improvement Assessment Framework (CCIAF) review, scoring over 90% in a rigorous evaluation of commercial practices across the UK public sector
These results placed the CCS at the top of commercial maturity, showing its strong governance, strategic planning, and commitment to continuous improvement.
CCS’s efforts to receive recognition
Introduced by the Cabinet Office in 2021, the CCIAF is a self-assessment tool designed to help public sector bodies measure their commercial effectiveness.
It evaluates organisations against key themes: capability and resourcing, functional strategy planning and governance, commercial systems and information, and policy, among others. The framework sets out standards for excellence in commercial practices and aims to drive consistent improvements across government departments.
The CCIAF provides three levels of maturity: Good, Better, and Best. Achieving the ‘Best’ designation requires meeting high operational standards and showing leadership in innovation, strategic alignment, and policy integration.
Following its 2023 assessment, CCS had already shown significant progress, increasing its score by 10 percentage points to 85%. However, as the UK’s largest public procurement organisation, CCS recognised the opportunity to go further. An internal review identified areas where performance was below the 90% benchmark, prompting an organisation-wide drive to reach the top standard.
Continuous improvements across operations
A key part of this effort was the action plan developed by the CCS’s Operational Control Centre (OpCC). This plan targeted all areas needing improvement, 88 in total, spread across the eight CCIAF themes.
Through a collaborative and systematic approach, CCS addressed these developed points, ensuring that the required improvements were fully implemented into its commercial operations.
This year’s assessment process included a thorough peer review by the Department for Education, adding a layer of scrutiny to ensure the robustness and accuracy of the results. This independent verification confirmed that CCS had exceeded the 90% threshold, securing the coveted ‘Best’ rating.
Strong commercial capability
Among the assessment findings were that CCS’s governance structures are fully aligned with commercial objectives, strategies incorporate both short and long-term goals in line with leading industry practices, and commercial outcomes are tracked and reported throughout the lifecycle of procurement activity.
The assessment also praised CCS for its use of technology in reporting and analytics, which supports data-driven decision-making at all levels of the organisation.
Continuous improvement was another area of excellence. CCS has embedded mechanisms to learn from experience and apply those lessons to its operations, ensuring a dynamic and responsive commercial environment that evolves with national needs and policy changes.
This recognition is a step forward in the CCS’s ongoing journey to be a world-class procurement body. The organisation remains committed to further strengthening its systems and practices, focusing on delivering maximum value for taxpayers and setting the benchmark for public sector procurement across the UK.
With this latest achievement, CCS reinforces its leadership in the field and sets a strong example for other public bodies striving for commercial excellence.
