Public Sector Guide
PROCUREMENT
The new Vehicle Purchase agreement from the Crown Commercial Service broadens the scope of the existing framework and makes it easier to buy zero and ultra-low emission vehicles for public sector use, explains Kim Harrison The government is committed to helping reduce our carbon emissions and has confirmed its ambition to see at least half of new cars to be ultra low emission by 2030. With so many government, local authority and wider public sector vehicles serving the UK public in so many ways, it was only right that when Crown Commercial Service (CCS) was considering the future of vehicle procurement, that green options were easily accessible for our customers. The Vehicle Purchase framework makes selecting the right electric vehicle (EV) or ultra low emission vehicle (ULEV) easy and empowers public sector customers to make greener choices. CCS is committed to helping its customers make decisions which are more environmentally friendly and ecologically responsible. CCS Vehicle Purchase background The new Vehicle Purchase agreement was launched in December 2018. This builds on the existing agreement, by broadening the scope to promote innovative new vehicle solutions, whilst still offering great savings. Through CCS, fleet managers/procurers across the public sector have access to a fleet offering that covers a wide range of agreements for the whole vehicle life cycle. Vehicle Purchase is an integral part of the CCS fleet offering. Vehicle Purchase brings together the collective buying power of public sector customers with their procurement expertise, which means CCS can help the public sector get the best commercial fleet deals in the interests of stakeholders as well as taxpayers. Over the last four years there has been a high level of demand for vehicles including
police cars, ambulances, local authority street scene and public service delivery vehicles. With this kind of demand, it was paramount that whilst developing the new Vehicle Purchase framework, we considered how these vehicles were bought in the future. Coupled with the governmental pressures on reducing emissions, it was important we provided a simple and easy to use way to buy electric and ultra low emission vehicles.
statement in November 2017 to “commit to electrify 25 per cent of cars in central government department fleets by 2022”. With the benefit of this collective knowledge, the decision was taken to deliberately not separate out the purchase of electric and ultra low vehicles into a distinct Lot. This allows the natural development of suppliers, bringing to the market (and therefore the framework) any new, innovative and alternatively fuelled vehicles, when they can. Any information about new vehicles and changes to what can be bought, are shared on the Fleet Portal with customers to ensure they are prepared for these changes. Additionally the rationalisation of the lotting structure maximises competition – the number of suppliers has increased from 41 to 48, which in turn, makes more vehicle types available including those specialist vehicles for local authority fleet operators.
Written by Kim Harrison, category lead - fleet, Crown Commercial Service
Making greener purchases
Development As with the development of any go to market strategy, extensive stakeholder engagement is critical. This gives access to a wide range of knowledge and experience which ensures that all opportunities have been explored. As such CCS took advantage of its role in two cross-governmental working groups dedicated to transportation issues. The first was the Defra-led team, which established the Government Buying Standards for The Portal Transport (mandatory for central The new agreement is supported by government, best practice the newly refreshed CCS Fleet for wider public sector). It Portal. This allows customers T h e includes environmental to view everything available Vehicle and other responsible in the market, including Purchas procurement alternatively fueled vehicles of vehicles, and gives access to online framew e including safety. quotations with enhanced empow ork e We also worked search. This includes the r s p u sector c blic with the OLEVability to filter results to mak ustomers led (Office for based on any requirements e gre Low Emission and compare vehicles. The choices ener Vehicles) group for system makes a vast amount the Government Fleet of technical and pricing Commitment, which information simple to search for, announced in the Autumn allowing customers to search by E
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