Page 2892 - Week 07 - Thursday, 7 June 2012
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library; purchase of Indigenous artworks from the Burrunju Aboriginal Corporation for interior spaces as part of the Education and Training Directorate’s furniture, fittings and equipment budget; and the enlisting of the services of an Indigenous caterer to supply food and beverages for the ACT Human Rights Commission events, including training and large-scale events.
In addition, whilst not strictly a social procurement, the Territory and Municipal Services Directorate is procuring for Exhibition Park poultry cages to be constructed by prisoners at the Alexander Maconochie Centre.
The Assembly resolved in June 2011 that Shared Services Procurement would work with other directorates to identify social procurement opportunities and subsequent demonstration projects. The government has over the past year continued to focus on developing awareness and expertise, in addition to fostering the social procurements mentioned above, in order to demystify social procurement and to demonstrate what is involved and what can be achieved. In August 2011 the Under Treasurer wrote to directors-general asking them to review their forthcoming procurement program to identify social procurement opportunities and offering Shared Services Procurement’s assistance in working with the directorates to progress projects.
Shared Services Procurement has promoted social procurement to directorates for individual procurements, met with directorates to explain how social procurement works and how the particular directorate could conduct social procurement, circulated guidance material, and arranged workshops with subject matter experts to explore possibilities and raise awareness. In concert with these activities, Shared Services Procurement has been developing a better understanding of directorate service requirements and where opportunities and risks may exist in relation to social procurement, as well as procurement in general.
Shared Services Procurement has established a dedicated senior officer position. That person will become a source of expertise for the government in this area and will assist to promote more demonstration procurements.
The Assembly resolved that Shared Services Procurement should have comprehensive processes in place so that all contracts and tenders are considered for social procurement potential. Shared Services Procurement had put in place a prompt within the procurement plan minute template for directorate staff and procurement officers to consider the suitability of a social procurement approach for procurement activities when the government originally announced it would be undertaking social procurement. This is complemented by the social procurement circular, and Shared Services Procurement has added to this resource to provide links to useful guidance material developed by other jurisdictions and organisations, such as Social Ventures Australia, Social Traders and the Social Return on Investment Network, and included this material on its website and portal.
The government has also extended the information on the contracts register to record social procurements. The contracts register will be further enhanced to distinguish social procurements that do not result in a social contract from those resulting in a contract that includes added social benefit as part of the contractor’s performance. The
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