Sections:

Procurement: Crown Agents

Website: External link www.crownagents.com

The Crown Agents for Oversea Governments and Administrations Limited (Crown Agents) is an international development company providing direct assistance, consultancy and training for public sector modernisation, particularly in financial management, procurement and logistics.

The company operates at all times to the highest standards of integrity and transparency. It is owned by The Crown Agents Foundation, a non-profit-distributing company, on whose behalf it allocates sums for social and developmental objectives.

The Secretary of State for International Development is a nominating body of the Foundation and has nominated a senior DFID official (currently Director of Finance and Corporate Performance, Richard Calvert) as a Permanent Member.

Experience

Crown Agents works for clients in more than 100 countries, and supplies a comprehensive portfolio of services to multilateral agencies such as the World Bank, European Commission, United Nations agencies and regional development banks, and to bilateral donors such as DFID, KfW, SIDA, CIDA and the Danish, Japanese and US governments.

Its clients are public and private sector organisations, both donor-funded and those seeking best value for their own resources.

In-House Specialisations

Procurement - Agency: Crown Agents is recognised internationally as one of the world’s leading independent procurement agents, and conducts procurement through our offices in Delhi, Dhaka, Johannesburg, London, Moscow, Nairobi, Singapore, Tokyo and Washington.

Procurement - Health: Crown Agents Health specialises in health procurement services and technical assistance to health programmes, often to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB. Crown Agents is a major provider of contraceptives throughout the developing world.

Procurement - Reform: Management of change in public procurement at institutional, organisational and individual levels.

Procurement - Value for Money Services: VFM audit, contract assessment, provision of advice and guidance, monitoring and audit, specific high value contract assessment, capacity and institution building.

Procurement - Benchmarking: Assessment of procurement performance against international best practice.

Procurement - Capacity Building: Provision of procurement-related advice and assistance to procuring entities. Crown Agents provides these services under a Procurement Fiduciary Risk, Capacity Building and Anti Corruption Enabling Agreement (CBEA) with DFID.

Procurement - Quality Assurance & Inspection: Product inspection and testing, vendor assessment, ethical audit.

Logistics - Shipping: Packing, consolidation, freight forwarding, air and sea charter, customs clearance and in-country delivery.

Logistics - Consultancy: Efficiency improvement and cost reduction through targeted stock control, warehouse management, distribution and information management.

Public Financial Management: Strengthening and modernising public financial management systems at state and local level. Particular areas of expertise are in policy formulation and the development of revenue authorities (customs and tax), debt and cash management and the budgetary process.

Governance: Institutional and organisational development, anti-corruption and assisting with the management of fiduciary risk through aid management and verification.

Human Resource Development: Training and capacity building in subjects relevant to development and management, delivered in-country, regionally or at Crown Agents’ International Management Training Centre in Worthing, England.

Technical Services: Engineering and project management services in IT, communications, vehicles and mobile plant, vehicle fleet management, civil engineering.

International Banking and Payment Services: Crown Agents Bank (formerly Crown Agents Financial Services Limited) is authorised and regulated by the UK Financial Services Authority. It provides banking and other financial management and payment services to donors, governments, Crown Agents’ clients and other organisations involved in development aid activities, disbursing some £3 billion of funds a year. The Bank is contracted by DFID to provide a range of services under its Financial Aid programme. Its contract to provide management, administration and banking services for the disbursement of UK development aid funds also covers pooled donor funds, and other third party monies, and the management and disbursement of Technical Cooperation funds, including working with management consultants and other agents appointed by DFID. Its other specialist services include international pension and payroll services to clients in 35 countries for more than 10,000 beneficiaries.

Legal Advisory Services: CA Legal provides commercial legal advice to DFID and other clients, and may be contacted directly or through DFID Procurement Group.

Humanitarian Assistance: Crown Agents is exclusively contracted by DFID’s Conflict, Humanitarian and Security Department - and by the HMG PCRU (Post Conflict Reconstruction Unit) - to provide a 24/7 emergency humanitarian response capability – the CHASE Operations Team.

Crown Agents’ own Crisis Response Team, separately, is also on call 24/7 to respond urgently to other humanitarian needs in procurement, quality assurance and inspection, and air charter.

International Operations

Crown Agents provides our range of developmental services through long-standing offices and subsidiary companies in:

Afghanistan	Iraq	Nigeria	Uganda
Albania	Jamaica	Pakistan	USA
Bangladesh	Jordan	Russia	Vietnam
Denmark	Japan	Serbia & Montenegro	Zambia
Ethiopia	Kenya	Singapore	Zimbabwe
Ghana	Macedonia	South Africa
India	Mozambique	Tanzania

- and a head office in London (Sutton).

Crown Agents is also represented by agents in:

Azerbaijan	Kyrgyzstan	St Kitts & Nevis
Bahamas	Malaysia	Sierra Leone
Belize	Nepal	Sri Lanka
Georgia	New Zealand	Sudan
Grenada	Philippines	Swaziland
Guyana	Romania	Ukraine

Contacts

For procurement and logistics services –

Phil Pickard – General Manager, Procurement
tel: +44-(0)20-8710-6741 fax: +44-(0)20-8643-4502
e-mail: phil.pickard@crownagents.co.uk

Godfrey Whitley - Manager, Public Financial Management
tel: +44-(0)20-8710-6150 fax: +44-(0)20-8770 0194
e-mail: godfrey.whitley@crownagents.co.uk

Iain Morrison - Director of Operations, Crown Agents Bank
tel: +44-(0)20-8710-6077 fax:+44-(0)20-8643 9113
e-mail: iain.morrison@crownagents.co.uk

Alan Smart - Director, CA Legal Services
tel: +44-(0)20-8710-6800 fax: +44-(0)20-8770 9184
e-mail: alan.smart@crownagents.co.uk

Duty Officer - Crown Agents CHASE Operations Team
tel: (24 hours mobile) 44(0)777 618 0012

For other services and for general information -
Don Cook – Executive Director
Head of Key Account Management Group for DFID
tel: +44-(0)20-8710 6773 fax: +44-(0)20-8643-9331
e-mail: don.cook@crownagents.co.uk

Contact in DFID: Phil Kerrigan, Head of CEPAS
Tel: +44 (0) 1355 843487 Fax: +44 (0) 1355 843183
e-mail: P-Kerrigan@dfid.gov.uk

Core Countries: Different procurement charges apply in the case of Bangladesh, Nigeria and countries in southern Africa, for which DFID has concluded core country enabling agreements with Crown Agents. Details are available from Crown Agents or from DFID Procurement Group.

Technical inspection, quality assurance, logistics and cargo movement services are provided at additional charges, and are available either in support of Crown Agents procurement or independently.

Training & Capacity Building: Crown Agents seeks to include capacity building within its procurement assignments whenever circumstances allow. More formal training (in-country or in UK) is provided by Crown Agents in procurement, supply chain management, public finance and banking and in many other subjects relevant to development at our International Management Training Centre in Worthing, regionally and in-country.

Last Updated 5 April 2006