Using procurement shared services: guide

Central Government Procurement Shared Services (CGPSS) provides specialist services or support to:

• Scottish Government agencies
• non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs)
• non-ministerial departments

See: national public bodies directory

​Sharing services is a key theme of our strategy to make more efficient use of resources.

Choice of service

There are three types of service to choose from:

• fully managed service (FMS) - provides support on all aspects of procurement including tendering, contract management, compliance with legislation and policy. Procurement training, Procurement and Commercial Improvement Programme Assessment (PCIP) support and management information reporting can also be included
• fully managed service 'lite' - provides the FMS to organisations with a low level of procurement spend
• contracting service - operates on an ad-hoc basis and is designed to help organisations with individual procurement projects or to cover gaps in capacity

The CGPSS can manage a procurement exercise on your behalf, advising on issuing tenders, setting criteria, carrying out evaluations and supporting you in managing contracts. They will help you to comply with legislation and government procurement policy.

CGPSS works on the principle of full cost recovery through partners paying for the services they receive. 

The fully managed service could help you to:

• align procurement policies with our expectations
• reduce the risk of supplier challenge through professional handling of tendering and contract management
• improve commercial awareness and procurement capability across the sector through targeted training and staff development
• remove the need for organisations to use expensive interim procurement resource

The contracting service could help you to:

• reduce the risk of supplier challenge through professional handling of the contracting process
• provide cover for peaks in demand for procurement resource, removing the need to use external agencies
• strengthen contract and supplier management arrangements, potentially providing savings and benefits
• save money through professional handling of supplier reviews and price negotiations 

Further information

• procurement