Social Clauses

A new framework for managing the social benefits of central and local government spending has been approved and implemented with the aim of improving social responsibility within public procurement.

Central and local government spending in Northern Ireland is estimated to exceed £3 billion every year including purchase of supplies, services and construction works. In November 2014 the Procurement Board acknowledged the potential to maximise the economic and social outcomes of social clauses and requested an independent evaluation from the Strategic Investment Board (SIB).

A consultation process took place including the Department of Finance’s Central Procurement Directorate, Permanent Secretaries and the senior staff of the Executive’s departments. Representatives from the Construction Industry Forum (CIFNI), Business Industry Forum (BIFNI) and Centres of Procurement Excellence (CoPEs) were also involved in the process.

Review recommendations:

• A focus on paid employment and training opportunities;

• Concentration on the larger contracts – where efforts will have the biggest impact;

• Bringing together requirements for opportunities for “new entrant trainees”: long-term unemployed people, young people leaving education (because of higher levels of youth unemployment), apprentices, and paid student work placements. This offers flexibilities for contractors in tailoring compliance with the clauses to their workforce needs;

• The establishment of a social benefits reference group, as a means of promoting the new arrangements in Departments and encouraging early engagement at business case stage;

• A proposal for more comprehensive brokerage services to help link new entrants and relevant contractors and provide a support service for new entrants that facilitates their transition into work;

• Underpinning these arrangements with legislation in the new Assembly mandate.

The proposals also included new monitoring arrangements to provide more comprehensive data on the outputs secured. Based on the recommendations the Procurement Board agreed the Buy Social Construction model for implementation from April 2016, while a model for services is to be further considered and advice has been sent to the Executive encouraging provision for social clauses within the Programme for Government final draft. The Buy Social framework ensures that requirements are to be used in procurement above £2 million for construction and above £4 million for civil engineering contracts.

Key recommendations accepted:

• Introduction of threshold values

• One key performance indicator of person-weeks

• Employment not work experience

• Introduction of legislation

• Greater focus on compliance (monitoring)

• Opportunities for under 25’s

• Brokerage

Programmes piloting the Buy Social model on construction and service contracts