SISTEMAS DE PROTECCION COLECTIVA SPC

A review of the chronology of the use of competitive tendering in the UK affords insight into its dynamic history to date. Table 1.3 below sets out a timeline of key legislative and policy developments that relate to how public procurement has been conducted in the UK since its introduction in 1984.

33 Table 1.3: Timeline of EU and UK public procurement legislative and policy developments

Year Type and nature of key developments to procurement law and policy

1984 Major restructuring of UK public procurement; tendering introduced as a purchasing practice

1997 Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) was introduced as a

requirement for public sector organizations to allow private sector firms to bid for the delivery of services, such as catering or security and improve value for money.

1999 The Office of Government Commerce is established as the new body to promote further improvements in government procurement.

Government report (National Audit Office) published on central government procurement;

2004- 5

The Gershon Efficiency Review considered public sector efficiency and made efficiency and expenditure recommendations

2004 EU directives were applied to governance of UK public procurement legislation

2005 An EU ‘SME friendly concordat’ was published to encourage governmental consideration of enabling small firms to compete for public sector work

2007 A new Government strategy, Transforming Government Procurement, highlighted the central importance of procurement in delivering high- quality public services and best value for money (VFM); that is, to award the contract, both monetary and non-monetary components of an offer are to be considered.

2009 The Glover Review considered new ways of improving participation in public procurement by small firms. Key changes it claims to have achieved were greater transparency of tender adverts and simplicity in tendering instructions

Jan

2011 Review of EU procurement rules and evaluation of impact and effectiveness of EU procurement legislation July

2011

UK Government Procurement Service established for central government procurement

Dec

2011 Proposals published for revised public procurement directives – first widespread review since 2004 2012 Public Services (Social Value) Act introduced in UK

Publication of report: Local Procurement: Making the Most of Small Business

2013 Lord Young’s report, ‘Growing Your Business’: several key reforms to create a simple and consistent approach to procurement across all public sector agencies. Support for SMEs and voluntary organisations in gaining better and more direct access to contract opportunities. Implemented in part 4 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 2014 The 2014 EU Procurement Directives came into force at EU level. EU

member states had two years to implement them in national legislation. This followed a successful lobbying campaign by the UK government and EU partners to negotiate a simpler, more flexible regime of procurement rules

Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) endorsement of the

procurement reform agenda in the ‘Getting a Better Purchase: Public Sector Procurement Report’

34

Year Type and nature of key developments to procurement law and policy

2015 Procurement Policy Note 03/15: Key reforms make public procurement more accessible to SMEs. Abolition of a pre-qualification stage for procurements below EU financial thresholds, and a requirement to have regard to guidance on qualitative selection issued by Cabinet Office for above EU threshold procurements

A requirement for contracting authorities to insert provisions in all public contracts to ensure prompt payment through the supply chain

The requirement to advertise public sector opportunities in one place (Contracts Finder), and to publish award notices for contracts from framework agreements

2015 The Public Contracts Regulations 2015. In practical terms, this ensured procurement documents are all available electronically from the date any contract notice, and compliance to Lord Young requirements to publish details of contracts and contract awards to Contracts Finder 2016 Brexit vote - decision taken for the UK to leave the EU

2017 Green paper, ’Building a New Industrial Strategy’. New goal set to achieve one third of all government spend with SMEs (directly and in supply chains) by 2020.

In the 1980s, a new operating environment emerged to win public sector work that also began a positive political and economic climate for small firms. The decade saw the first major review of UK public procurement in 1984 led by the Cabinet Office as part of a new agenda to ensure government spending is efficient and effective. In turn, the Treasury Central Unit on Procurement was formed, more senior procurement staff were appointed in departments, and other bodies such as The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) were established. The market practice of tendering as one form of purchasing within procurement was first introduced in 1984 as part of restructuring activity for public sector commissioning. Within the new competitive tendering process, firms could submit a set of documents that demonstrated value and capability. In effect, they would be joining a competitor peer group to compete to deliver a public service or product when matched against a set of specified buying criteria.

The 1990s were characterised by major policy and infrastructure developments that directly affected UK public procurement. The Treasury Central Unit on Procurement had been formed, and from 1995 to 1999, there were three major government reports published on central government procurement (Treasury 1995; Treasury/Cabinet Office 1998; Gershon, 1999) that gave public procurement a prominent platform. The effects of regulation were observed to cause tendering to be an expensive

35 process for small firms (Curran and Blackburn, 2001) which became an area for exploration in subsequent empirical studies. By now, the concept of procurement was receiving attention in its own right. In 2001, seven benefits small firms bring to public procurement were articulated: competition, lower cost, innovation, responsiveness, flexibility, quality of service, and specialist knowledge (OGC and SBS, 2005). This report also stated that small firms may face barriers to tenders and so need support. Such support appeared nationally through the promotion of on-line tender access portals, tender completion guidance toolkits and increased localised efforts to engage small businesses in supplier briefing opportunities.

In 2003, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister developed the National Procurement Strategy for Local Government (ODPM, 2003) that carried a target to create the Small Business Friendly Concordat, a voluntary code of practice that set out what SMEs can expect when tendering for local government contracts (ODPM, 2005). Secondly, in 2004-5, the Gershon Efficiency Review considered public sector efficiency and made efficiency and expenditure recommendations. These became key themes that influenced how public procurement was conducted in Britain. Thirdly, policy directives started to use procurement as a wider vehicle for economic regeneration (Glover, 2008) and so resource and capability requirements became extended through external influences, for example, to create local jobs. The Glover report (2008) built on previous policy statements (Morand, 2003; Small Business Service 2005) to call for amelioration of market functioning. As a process, tendering is primarily driven to achieve, or demonstrate, short-term achievement of ‘value for money’ (Morand, 2003; Treasury, 2007; Loader, 2007). The introduction of the EU Code of Best Practices for SME access to procurement (2008) stated that increased involvement of SMEs in public procurement would result in higher competition for public contracts, leading to better value for money for contracting authorities.

The Single Market (2010) introduced a recommendation to make public procurement work for innovation, green growth and social inclusion by

36 imposing specific mandatory requirements. The intention and effects of such moves upon small firm capability are examined in recent studies as tender documents begin to demand supplier evidence of compliance towards meeting new capabilities, such as environmental management (Lee and Klassen, 2008) and, later on, in corporate social responsibility (Baden et al, 2011). By 2011, it had become standard for governments to enact policies that are designed to facilitate an increased small firm engagement in public procurement (Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development, 2013). In 2011, public intention towards SME engagement was again highlighted when the Cabinet Office declared that small firms should cease to be shut out of procurement processes by its own description of excessive bureaucracy and petty regulation.

In 2012, the government introduced the Public Services (Social Value) Act. This meant that for the first time, all public bodies in England and Wales must now consider how the services they commission and procure might improve the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of an area. Social value is a way of thinking about how resources are allocated and used. It looks beyond contract price towards the collective benefit to a community. This Act sits alongside other procurement laws to complement existing procurement legislation that is characterised by value for money.

In 2013, the role small firms play in economic development and growth was re-enforced in a procurement context. The concept of capability in relation to small firms to improve their skills and performance is cited as one of the three most important conditions for economic growth from this sector (Young, 2013) where much more needs to be done to encourage firms to invest in their capability. In a 2013 survey (FSB) the top three reasons for not engaging in tendering were a lack of awareness (31%), too time consuming (20%) and unable to compete (13%). Nearly half of those firms surveyed who had tendered had not won any public contracts. In 2015, the UK government introduced further reforms to make public procurement more accessible to SMEs, such as abolishing a pre-qualification tendering stage. In 2017, a Green paper on Building a New Industrial Strategy

37 published a new goal to achieve one third of all government spend with SMEs (directly and in supply chains) by 2020. It does not offer clues about how to improve small firm capability to compete successfully achieve this target.

Over a thirty-five year period, competitive tendering has been portrayed as an efficiency mechanism, a socio-economic instrument and as a small business support policy. It is clear that tendering capabilities are under- conceptualised and reliant on descriptive accounts that do not seek causalities that may exist independently of observable events. Social structures can and do condition the possibilities for firm actors to make sense of social situations and to act deliberately and competitively within them. This thesis sets out to explore those structural conditions and the exercise of agency that shapes successful tendering practices in small firms.