The company, formed in partnership with Capita, aims to increase revenues generated through royalties from training materials and fees from accredited training organisations.
It will charge exam institutes and training organisations to run exams and courses based on a number of government-owned tools such as ITIL, an IT service management standard. It will also act as an exam institute for the government’s project management systems, including PRINCE2.
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said: “It’s a great endorsement of the civil service that major companies use PRINCE2 and ITIL but business expertise and investment is needed to develop them commercially.”
Capita will pay the government £10m up front and a further £9.4m in the company’s first three years for a 51 per cent stake in the venture.
After this the company will pay at least £9.4m a year to government, as well as a proportion of any profits secured after this payment is made.
CSW outlined the government's plans November 2012, after the government’s chief operating officer Stephen Kelly had said in an interview that the government should create commercial ventures from its intellectual property.
Talking specifically about project management standards and methodologies, he said: “It’s something that makes millions of pounds of revenue already to the British government, and that’s a business where you look at it and think: ‘That’s absolutely fabulous’, and it could be elevated on a global platform if it was provided on a structure where people were incentivised to do that.”
Government expects its income from the Best Management Practice portfolio to triple to over £30m per year within five years.
The new company will be led by William Jordan, the executive director who has been responsible for the portfolio within Cabinet Office, and Duncan Byatt, crown commercial lead in the Cabinet Office. Employees of the new company will be given a five per cent annual profit share.