About us

We help educational institutions to buy products and services whilst making time and cost savings!

Crescent Purchasing Consortium (CPC) provide purchasing frameworks, dynamic purchasing systems (DPS) and procurement consultancy services for schools, academies, colleges, universities and other educational organisations.

CPC frameworks/DPS

Our purchasing agreements make procurement quicker, easier and safer as the lengthy tender process has already been done for you in compliance with the UK Public Contracts Regulations. You can get quotes from the fully-vetted suppliers by using our online quote tools and many of our frameworks are recommended by the Department for Education.

CPC procurement consultancy

If you need help running a tender or require a managed procurement service try our expert education sector procurement consultancy. Our dedicated team (previously known as Tenet Education Services) provide onsite and offsite procurement services.

Join CPC for free today

Crescent Purchasing Consortium is a membership organisation dedicated to the education sector. All educational organisations can use our services and get free CPC membership. We have over 10,000 members and when you join CPC you will get access to our purchasing agreements, free procurement training and get future opportunites to apply for grant funding.

CPC harness the collective spending power of our members to drive down costs from our suppliers, meaning that we can deliver savings that couldn't be obtained through tenders done by individual institutions.

A charity which invests in the education sector

Crescent Purchasing Consortium (CPC) is the trading name of Crescent Purchasing Limited (CPL) and we are a not-for-profit organisation which is owned by the further education sector. CPC is here to support the education sector and our income is provided by CPC suppliers via a small percentage of the value of sales to Crescent Purchasing Consortium members. The income is used to sustain and expand our range of procurement frameworks whilst providing support to our education sector members.

Any surpluses generated from CPC's activities stay within the education sector as we are a registered charity. We have invested over £1.56 million into the sector and we support a range of initiatives such as grants for student events and activities, CPD accredited procurement training and so much more.

You can rely on CPC suppliers

Each of our 1400+ framework suppliers has been fully vetted and has been through a full CPC tender process to gain a place on our frameworks. If your business would like to be on a CPC procurement framework, you need to become a CPC supplier and go through a CPC framework tendering process.

Our people are here to help you

We offer specialist advice on spending practices and provide support to help our educational institution members get the best value for money.

The CPC team is made up of over 80 experienced and dedicated professionals. Our procurement experts can provide support and guidance to you.

• General advice: Helpdesk Team
• Technical queries about a framework: Contracting Team
• Onsite or remote 1 to 1 procurement framework support: Regional Procurement Advisors
• Procurement consultancy services (previously known has Tenet Education Services)

Tenet Procurement Services are also part of Crescent Purchasing Limited and they provide frameworks and procurement consultancy services for the wider public sector and private sector.

Collaboration

CPC works in collaboration with the Department for Education and United Kingdom University Purchasing Consortia (UKUPC). CPC also works in partnership with Dukefield Procurement on joint frameworks.

Constitution

Crescent Purchasing Ltd is a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity governed by its memorandum and articles of association. The registered charity number is 1130461 and the company number is 06774578.

Our history