Page 2890 - Week 07 - Thursday, 7 June 2012
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overarching principle of ACT government procurement is the pursuit of value for money, and directorates need to be assured that any social procurements they conduct will deliver the best procurement outcome. The enterprise delivering a social contract for government must also be able to sustain itself based on the cost of that contract.
Mechanisms to measure the social return on investment, the SROI, are still being researched and developed in order to demonstrate the costs and benefits of this form of procurement. The government has been fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn from the Chief Executive Officer of the SROI Network, Mr Jeremy Nicholls, on a couple of occasions in the last year.
The 29 June 2011 Assembly resolution asked the government to identify goods and services for which social procurement should be prioritised during the procurement process. In considering social procurement opportunities the government does not limit its consideration to any particular goods and services. All procurements are potential social procurements, depending on the capacity in the marketplace to deliver the particular goods or services and incorporate the sought-after added social value at an acceptable cost.
Notwithstanding this, advice from Social Traders Ltd has been that a suitable starting point for organisations seeking to conduct social procurement is services contracts with a high labour component, low skilled work—with opportunities for training at certificate level, and possibly further, with the potential to eventually lead to unsupported employment—and in a field where there is an existing shortage of workers in order to avoid displacing people who are already employed. For this reason directorates that are seeking to procure for these types of services are strongly encouraged to use a social procurement approach.
The government undertook to establish at least three demonstration social procurement projects in the 2011-12 fiscal year. Since that resolution was agreed, the government has executed two substantial social contracts, for graffiti removal across Canberra, managed by the Territory and Municipal Services Directorate, and for public housing facilities management for Housing ACT in the Community Services Directorate.
The graffiti removal procurement resulted in a single contractor being awarded contracts for five of six regions tendered. The contract requires the contractor to employ, per region, one person experiencing barriers to employment—that is, five people in total experiencing disadvantage—for a minimum of 38 hours per week for at least 26 weeks at one time, to enable the disadvantaged person to receive on-the-job training and supervision from a qualified tradesperson. After this time, if the person is deemed to be qualified, the contractor must employ another disadvantaged person. To ensure the social benefits are properly delivered, the contractor must recruit the disadvantaged persons through a recognised employment service.
The Housing ACT total facilities management contract requires the contractor to employ people from various groups, such as public housing tenants, persons with a disability and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons. The contract management will include reporting against a range of performance measures, including outcomes
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