Our Support

Our team

We deliver through the coordination of activity across the five key areas within CESP: Performance Management, Policy & Best Practice, Sustainable Procurement, Capability & Leadership and; Communications & Programme Management.

Performance Management
We work with departments to improve the timeliness, consistency and accuracy of performance data for sustainable procurement and operations, to provide robust view of current performance, and inform future decision making.

Policy & Best Practice
We work with practitioners and policy makers to support deliver of the Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE) targets and mandates, as well as the commitments from the Sustainable Procurement Action Plan (SPAP) including new measures on sustainable procurement and the Quick Wins product standards.

Sustainable Procurement
We support and facilitate the development of an aligned approach to sustainable procurement across central government departments.

Capability & Leadership
We are currently developing a high-level practical strategy and an 18-month implementation plan aimed at embedding sustainable procurement and operations within central government departments, with OGC's support. The main focus is on raising knowledge, skills, awareness and practice, leadership commitment and attitudes & behaviours.

Communications & Programme Management
This team is responsible for the development and implementation of our stakeholder engagement strategy and supporting the priorities set in relation to sustainable procurement and operation of the government estate.

Our goals

Our goals are to achieve the government's sustainable procurement and operations commitments, as outlined above, and in general to improve sustainable procurement and operations practice across central government. See Government Delivery.

Our current focus

We have been active on a number of fronts.

An immediate priority when CESP was established in April 2008 was to develop a clear picture of performance and a future plan for delivery. CESP now leads on government department data collection and monitoring, passing this data to the Sustainable Development Commission (the governments independent watchdog) - for their review.

A further priority was to establish the contributions of departments and other central stakeholders in achieving the targets and commitments:  this was summarised in the August 2008 Delivery Plan, with progress reported every six months in the Delivery Plan Update.

Now that we have a much better view of performance for 2009/10 we have started to develop our full programme of support. This focuses specifically around achieving sustainable procurement and operations commitments as well as sharing 'best practice'.  Here you can find our latest guidance as well as policy and standards on Sustainability.

Highlights of this programme are noted below:

• Further developing sustainable operations and procurement targets and performance commitments, to extend beyond 2010/11. Here you can find a report we commissioned on options, which has fed into Defra's current review of the targets.
• Establishing and strengthening relationships with organisations such as the Carbon Trust, the Energy Saving Trust and WRAP (the recycling champions), to harness as much expert knowledge as possible and direct this to where it is most needed with departments.
• Developing a pan-Government 'how to' approach for sustainable procurement, including a 'straw-man' of best practice for supplier engagement
• Continuing to improve the data quality by moving towards something similar to  'real time' reporting, with departments reporting on a quarterly basis.
• Commissioning a scoping study into the different commercial models which can be used to retrofit energy efficient measures into public buildings. A copy of the study can be found Here.

Our measurement of success

Success and progress can be measured in a number of ways. The most obvious is the departmental performance against target for SOGE and SPAP. Much of this success is down to departments' hard work and commitment.

Over time, we will be looking to provide additional support by providing the information needed and the tools necessary to increase the pace of change across government. We want to empower individuals to challenge the status quo to make the necessary changes; ensuring that there is the capability and leadership within the different areas of central government departments to make this happen.