Office of Government Commerce
Encyclopedia
Cabinet Office
The Cabinet Office is a department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for supporting the Prime Minister and Cabinet of the United Kingdom....
, a department of the Government of the United Kingdom
Government of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Government is the central government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Government is led by the Prime Minister, who selects all the remaining Ministers...
. The OGC operates through the Government Procurement Service, an executive agency
Executive agency
An executive agency, also known as a next-step agency, is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate in order to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Assembly or Northern Ireland...
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The purpose of the OGC is to support the procurement and acquisition process of public sector organisations in the UK through policy and process guidance and the negotiation of overarching service and provision frameworks. This is intended to improve value for money to the taxpayer, optimising the level of taxpayers equity directed towards the delivery of services. Similar organisations can be found in most western European countries, for instance Hansel Ltd.
Hansel Ltd.
Hansel Ltd. is the central procurement unit of the Finnish Government. The objective of the operations of the company is to produce savings for the Finnish Government by putting framework agreements for goods and services out to tender. Hansel's tasks and roles are defined in the Public Procurement...
in Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
and Consip in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
OGC supports initiatives that encourage better supplier relations, sustainable procurement, the benefits of utilising smaller suppliers and the potential of eProcurement. Representing the UK at the European Union (EU) the organisation assists the public sector application of EU procurement rules within the United Kingdom.
Overarching contracts are accessed by the public sector through the Government Procurement Service.
In November 2005 the OGC's Commercial Activities Recompetition (CAR) project was announced. The described the requirement to significantly restructure certain OGC activities, and is currently ongoing.
Best practice models
The organisation acts as sponsor for best practiceBest practice
A best practice is a method or technique that has consistently shown results superior to those achieved with other means, and that is used as a benchmark...
of Project, Programme, Risk and Service Management:
- Managing Successful Programmes (MSP)
- PRojects IN Controlled Environments (PRINCE2PRINCE2PRojects IN Controlled Environments 2 is a structured project management method endorsed by the UK government as the project management standard for public projects. The methodology encompasses the management, control and organisation of a project...
) - Management of Risk (M_o_R)
- Information Technology Infrastructure LibraryInformation Technology Infrastructure LibraryThe Information Technology Infrastructure Library , is a set of good practices for IT service management that focuses on aligning IT services with the needs of business. In its current form , ITIL is published in a series of five core publications, each of which covers an ITSM lifecycle stage...
(ITIL) - Portfolio, Programme and Project Offices (P3O)
OGC does not in itself provide training but owns the models, certification being controlled by the APM Group Ltd and training being conducted by a range of approved providers. OGC has a series of official websites for its best practice guidance which can be found at Best-Management-Practice.com.