Time to Tune into the Real Social Network
Procurement has not only great power, but also great responsibility to help drive social change. And embedding social value in tenders is only the start.
By STILLFX / Shutterstock“No fundamental social change occurs merely because government acts. It’s because civil society, the conscience of a country, begins to rise up and demand – demand – demand change.”
Former Democratic Vice-President Joe Biden
Where does the real value of a contract lie for public sector organisations? Is it in achieving a low price for goods, services or works? Or in savings in the ongoing management of a contract? Could it be in maintaining critical services for vulnerable people? Perhaps in creating innovative solutions to issues that improve the lives of all citizens in a Local Authority, or wider, area?
The truth is that it is all of these things and more. Fundamentally, the delivery of services are the lifeblood of public sector organisations and the contracts, be they for goods, services or works, are the foundation of this. But where, in the past, there may have only been a focus on cost and quality, the expectations on and in procurement have changed markedly.
The change is shown in how procurement approach the nature of the total value of the contract. Not just the cost and quality, but what it actually delivers for wider society beyond the scope of requirements. Call it social value, call it social benefits, procurement are front and centre for organisations looking to embed this wider value into their contracts.
Fair Work and Community Benefits
The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 was introduced in order to ensure that public bodies consider how the services they commission and procure might improve the economic, social and environmental well-being of their local area. However, it won’t be until later this year that contracts placed by central Government in the UK will have a mandatory requirement for social value considerations.
And this is where part of the issue lies in putting social value considerations into procurement processes. This regulation was only suggested and introduced in response to the collapse of Carillion, with the aim of “restoring trust between government, industry and the public”. Up until this point, any social value considerations had only been a consideration, rather than a mandatory evaluation criteria.
All this means that there are a considerable number of procurement professionals in the UK who have never put social value into their tenders or contracts. Any new measure, as with anything else, will require extensive training for buyers at a time where resources are stretched thin and training budgets are nigh-on non-existent in many cases.
However, there are a number of public bodies, particularly north of the border, who are already doing this. In 2015, the Scottish Government unveiled new guidance on making Fair Work Practices in public procurement. This included considerations on the Real Living Wage and made it a requirement for procurement to consider this as an evaluation criteria for each tender they undertook.
Now, nearly all Scottish Local Authorities have Fair Work Practices as an evaluation criteria in all procurement exercises. At Glasgow City Council, for example, Fair Work Practices has a defined weighting of 5 per cent, alongside Community Benefits as either as an evaluated (weighted at 10 per cent) or non-evaluated criterion.
Benefits for ALL to See
For procurement, Community Benefits and Social Value come in two main guises – what we expect from our suppliers; and what we expect from our purchasing. If procurement truly wants its suppliers to get tuned into this social network, then they need to be leading from the front. This means not only mandating it in contracts, but also engaging with Social Enterprises and running social projects of our own.
Investment in Social Enterprise will help to grow an already thriving sector which employs around 5 per cent of the UK workforce and is worth £60 billion towards UK GDP. The Big Issue, The Co-Op, Jamie Oliver’s ‘15’ restaurant are among the most well-known of these organisations.
(On a personal recommendation, try ‘Street and Arrow’ in Glasgow or ‘Streat’ in Melbourne and you’ll be doing your bit to support social enterprise!)
Beyond this, there are great examples of how large organisations are taking steps further to support social enterprise and add social value to contract. Liverpool Victoria is building extensive work with social enterprise into all of its procurement processes and is encouraging its own suppliers to get involved too.
Time to Grow your Network
Now it’s time for you to get involved and to make sure that you join your fellow procurement professionals in changing the world, one tender at a time. There are a couple of easy steps you can take and you don’t need to start big to get things up and running.
First, search out all the information and guidance you can find on social value, social enterprises and embedding this in procurement processes. Then find out whether or not your organisation is evaluating Community Benefits or Fair Work Practices as part of their tenders. Is it a mandatory criterion? Do your stakeholders even know about it?! Look to see if there is scope to add this, even starting with it as part of a wider question.
Finally (for now at least) you can start to look at contracts that could be performed by a social enterprise. Common ones include office supplies, coffee and catering, but the full list is much longer than that. There’s even provisions in the Public Contracts Regulations (2015) for run tenders for supported businesses only, which could put you well on your way to making a real difference in procurement.
After all, it’s what we’re here to do!
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this article and the series of articles on the challenges facing public sector procurement in 2019. Leave your comments below, or get in touch directly, I’m always happy to chat!
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