[3] It is owned and governed by a consortium of county, metropolitan and borough councils in Yorkshire and the North West England.
It claims to be the 'largest formally constituted public sector buying organisation in the UK'.
These were joined in the 1980's by Bolton, Knowsley, St Helen's and Wigan and finally the City of York Council became a Unitary Authority in 1996 to form the 13 Founder Members of today.
[7] The Organisation grew through the 1970s and 80s and rapidly in the 1990s as schools gained power of their own budgets under the Local Management of Schools provisions of the Education Reform Act 1988.
[8] The organisation is unsubsidised and budgets to make a small surplus each year, with profits returned to member authorities and customers.