However, it said that centralised buying processes have proven popular and more organisations were putting work through the body, such as campaigns tackling obesity, smoking, road safety and climate change

Against industry standards the body claims to have saved £1.8m on prepress costs, and £1.588m on printing costs (against the range of quotes it was offered for various print jobs), £187,000 on paper and £734,000 on Royal Mail charges (against rate card tariffs). Overall across all media, the COI claimed to have made savings of nearly 50% against the industry benchmarks it used for comparison - a saving of £241m.

Even so, its use of digital media continued to grow exponentially: digital marketing rose to nearly £40m from less than £22m a year earlier. Campaigns such as filing tax returns online have saved the organisation more than half a billion pounds, it claimed.

COI head of publications Andrew Prince said that the secret to effective buying was to "make sure you read the specification carefully.

"Don't be afraid to suggest a different finish where it might save you money or time. Think about the added value that doing this might give  you; it might be quicker."

He also said that the COI has a system for informing its roster of printers how well they have fared against each other. "We give printers regular feedback to those that were unsuccessful on how their prices stacked up," said Prince. "So if we bought at 100%, we can tell them if their quote was 112, 114, or 116% for example."