How suppliers apply to get on the Digital Marketplace.

The Digital Marketplace team and the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) don’t evaluate suppliers or their individual services.

When you buy a service through the Digital Marketplace, you must check that both the supplier and the service can meet your needs. This means that you must write clear requirements and evaluate suppliers against them.

The application process

There are 2 parts to the supplier application process on the Digital Marketplace. Suppliers have to:

  1. Confirm information about their company history and the way they work through a series of questions. This is called the ‘supplier declaration’.
  2. Add information about the services that they want to offer.

The supplier declaration

Suppliers are legally required to meet a set of minimum standards. Only those suppliers who state that they meet these minimum standards in the supplier declaration are considered for a place on a framework (agreement between government and suppliers).

All G-Cloud and Digital Outcomes and Specialists suppliers on the Digital Marketplace have to confirm that they:

Digital Outcomes and Specialists suppliers also have to confirm that they’ll work according to:

Service details

As well as completing the supplier declaration, all suppliers have to provide information on their services. The details suppliers are asked to give depends on the category they apply to.

Digital Outcomes and Specialists service details

Digital Outcomes and Specialists services have to fit into 1 of 4 categories, or ‘lots’:

  • digital outcomes, for example a team to provide a booking system beta or an accessibility audit
  • digital specialists, for example an individual developer or user researcher to work on a specific project
  • user research studios
  • user research participants

Digital Outcomes and Specialists suppliers must include information like:

  • where they can work
  • how much their services cost
  • details of their experience

G-Cloud service details

G-Cloud services have to fit into 1 of 3 different categories:

  • cloud hosting, for example content delivery networks or load balancing services
  • cloud software, for example accounting tools or customer service management software
  • cloud support, for example migration services or ongoing support

G-Cloud suppliers must include information like:

  • how secure their services are
  • how much their services cost
  • where they store their data
  • whether their services are based on open standards

Read the G-Cloud suppliers’ guide or the Digital Outcomes and Specialists suppliers’ guide to learn more.

CCS checks

After suppliers have been accepted on to a framework, CCS:

  • monitors supplier credit scores, for example Experian credit scores and Dun & Bradstreet financial stress scores
  • investigates specific queries raised about suppliers
  • performs random spot checks on services to ensure they match the information provided in supplier applications

It’s your responsibility to check whether the supplier can offer a service that meets your needs.

Published 18 April 2016
Last updated 2 July 2019 + show all updates

  1. Changed ‘G-Cloud 10’ to ‘G-Cloud 11’, which is the current version of the G-Cloud framework.
  2. Digital Outcomes and Specialists 3 is live. You must use this contract to buy services from Monday 1 October 2018.
  3. You must refer to the G-Cloud 10 terms and conditions when you sell services from Monday 2 July.
  4. Updated to reflect new G-Cloud 9 ‘lot’ structure.
  5. First published.

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