Recognising that in many instances environmental, social and economic issues are inextricably intertwined, in recent times ‘sustainable procurement’ has gathered traction as a terminology and as an approach to organising procurement programs. This shift to an integrated consideration of objectives from across policy domains marks the beginning of a more nuanced positioning for public sector procurement as a policy implementation tool (Barraket, Keast & Furneaux 2016, p.5). This includes some attempts to introduce more network- management style approaches into traditional procurement frameworks - an example of this was provided by one of the ‘user group’ participants:
“It was important we didn’t prescribe [methods to the contractor], but work with them to identify what they could do within the guidelines. There is still a great deal of accountability in those contract agreements - but it’s against what they said they would do, rather than what we told them to do. That ties them to the objectives we included, but also to their own plan for how they would achieve them”. (Senior Manager, Australian Government – interview)
The Scottish Government has been a global leader in pioneering a focus on socio- economic outcomes in procurement, incrementally introducing stronger and
more specific socio-economic requirements into its procurement policies for many years. In 2009 the trajectory culminated in the introduction of the Scottish Sustainable Procurement Action Plan. In the plan, sustainable procurement is defined as: “A process whereby organisations meet their needs for goods, services, works and utilities in a way that achieves value for money on a whole of life basis and generates benefits not only to the organisation, but also to society, the economy and the environment” (Scottish Government n.d. e). The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Bill was subsequently enacted in June 2014 and requires the consideration of how procurement activity can ‘improve the economic, social, and environmental wellbeing of a Local Government Authority area; facilitate the involvement of small and medium enterprises, third sector entities and supported businesses; and promote innovation’ (Scottish Government n.d. f). The Scottish model draws on ongoing and open dialogue with the social enterprise and third sectors, and includes financial and other support for capacity building programs and advocacy roles.
In England, The Public Services (Social Value) Act was enacted in 2012. All public authorities are now required to ‘have regard to economic, social and environmental wellbeing in connection with public services contracts’. Social value is defined as being an improvement to the “economic, social and environmental well-being of the relevant area” (Anthony Collins Solicitors 2014, p.2), and through this the Act also allows for local determination of what constitutes social value (NEF 2014, p.13). There are some limitations to the reach of the Act – such as only requiring consideration of social value ‘relevant’ to what is being procured; not including goods and works contracts; and having relatively high spend thresholds to which it applies (for more information, see: UK Government n.d.). This notwithstanding, by recognising the broader conceptualisation of value, the Act names and prioritises horizontal policies as key objectives to be delivered through public sector procurement.
The introduction of the Social Value Act is the result of a policy and practice trajectory that has been in development for many years, and which has been supported by capacity building and advocacy organisations. This includes Social
Enterprise UK and similar entities in most regions around the country, and the work of these organisations continues to evolve alongside the implementation of the Act. This includes the launch, in July 2014, of the Social Value Hub - a web portal that brings together resources relating to delivering and commissioning social value in the UK. It was created to assist councils, public sector commissioners and providers “. . . take advantage of the Social Value Act to deliver improved public services and cost-savings” (Social Value Hub n.d.).
In early 2014, the European Union issued significant reforms to its Public Procurement Directive that emphasise quality, environmental considerations, social aspects and innovation (European Parliament News 2014). Guidance suggests considering social and environmental matters concurrently to support a combined approach to integrating sustainability issues (European Commission 2010).
In addition to top-level regulatory approaches, there are also numerous examples of attempts to integrate various horizontal considerations at the policy and program level of procurement activity:
• at the Local Authority level some examples include: Parramatta City Council and Brisbane City Council (Burkett 2010c), and the Goldcoast City Council in Australia (Social Traders n.d.); the City of Toronto’s Social Procurement Framework in Canada (City of Toronto 2016);
• at the State/Province level some examples include: The NSW Government’s trial of Social Benefit Bonds (NSW Government n.d. b); and the Nova Scotia Public Procurement Act (2011), which has as a key purpose to “promote sustainable procurement in procurement decisions including identifying and exploring opportunities to work with and support social enterprises and businesses that are owned by and who employ under- represented populations” (Provide of Nova Scotia 2014, pp.1-2).; and • at the national level some examples include: The Australian Government’s
Indigenous Procurement Policy, which was introduced in June 2015 and includes both indirect (targets and other award conditions) and direct (set
asides for Indigenous businesses) approaches (Australian Government 2015).
Intermediaries (like Social Enterprise UK, mentioned above) have had a significant impact on all these recent advancements, including more recently in Australia (for examples, of these intermediary initiatives, see: Social Procurement Australasia n.d.; Buy Social Directory n.d.; Buy Social Canada n.d.) Broadly, these entities focus on advocacy to stimulate the demand for for-social- benefit suppliers, and on capacity building to improve their market readiness. In some cases, to ensure the availability of a relevant supplier pool, purchasers are also taking a developmental role with a particular supplier or type of supplier to improve their capacity to bid for and deliver contracts. This may include offering mentoring, assistance with infrastructure development, or setting aside small contracts on which they can ‘cut their teeth’. For example, Brisbane City Council’s Social Procurement Framework included a stepped approach to bringing social benefit providers into the supply chain (Burkett 2010c, pp.11-15).
These more recent developments reflect the growing interest in harnessing public sector procurement to assist with addressing the types of socio-economic issues that social innovation policy is concerned with. The focus of this thesis is the public sector, however it should be noted that interest in socio-economic procurement and related activity is not limited to the public sector. Social procurement strategies can be adopted by any entity that is purchasing goods and/or services (see for example Corporate Social Procurement in Australia - Social Traders 2014).
The historical overview provided situates these developments within a long tradition of policymaking, and thereby contributes to normalising current interest and activity. Positioning current interest in and activity around socio- economic procurement as a continuation of this long history can assist with de- centring resistance to supporting social innovation assemblages. This ‘nothing new’ approach was described by one of the public sector ‘user group’ participants
as an effective approach for generating support around socio-economic procurement strategies.
“The way I present social procurement internally is that we’ve been doing this forever. Most Councils have at some point had a local procurement policy. So it’s similar to that. A new name and conceptually a bit different – but not that different really. And we’ve had tenders where we were doing it, but no-one was calling it social procurement then. My mantra is that it’s business as usual, but now we’re going to try and be deliberate about it.” (Senior Manager, Local Authority – interview)
However, despite the evidently long history and more recent advances, practical implementation and realisation of the potential of socio-economic procurement remains under-developed. Before exploring some of the factors influencing this, I outline the more nuanced conceptualisation of socio-economic procurement that is emerging.