Sustainable, innovative, transparent and cost-effective – this is the Irish Government’s long-term vision for public procurement which meets the needs of the State and delivers greater benefit to the public. With the Government due to publish its finalised public procurement policy later this year, this article assesses the important role social value will play and how bidders can score highly.
What will social value look like in the Government’s first public procurement policy?
The Government intends for procurement to always serve the public’s best interest, reflecting the European Union’s ‘Buying Social’ guidance on Socially Responsible Public Procurement (SRPP). This approach promotes:
- Employment opportunities
- Social inclusion
- Gender equality
- Accessibility and non-discrimination
- Workforce upskilling
- Sustainable and inclusive project design.
SRPP outlines the ways in which procurement can address societal challenges, inclusive of social, ethical, environmental and economic, by leveraging purchasing power for positive outcomes. While SRPP is guidance, it is likely the Government’s new procurement policy will reflect its objectives to support Ireland’s sustainable development.
Further, while there is no state-wide public procurement or social value policy at the moment, many local authorities currently develop and use their own frameworks to extract the most social benefit from procurement processes. For example, Dublin City Council’s social value framework shapes their decision-making in the procurement process. This identifies social value outcomes relevant for the work being procured, creates a ready-made set of social value questions for tenders, and provides metrics against which outcomes can be measured. The high-level goals of this framework are to develop a more generative, socially inclusive, healthier and more environmentally sustainable Dublin.
To achieve these goals, Dublin City Council will evaluate tenders not only based on the most economically advantageous tender (MEAT) criteria, but also with decision-making framed by social considerations. The new national public procurement policy is likely to align with regional frameworks such as Dublin’s, given the common objective of delivering wider and more significant public benefit. While the new policy may not be identical to Dublin’s framework, we imagine its aims will not be dissimilar and bidders can expect to be required to deliver social value in similar areas.
How can bidders leverage social value to score highly in tenders?
With social value being a broad topic, it can be hard for bidders to know how to score highly. Our extensive experience in crafting compelling social value responses and supporting with solution architecture has highlighted to us where bidders can lose marks. To score highly, bidders must avoid making common mistakes including:
- Treating social value as a box-ticking exercise: Failing to treat social value as integral to the solution. Social value is not simply a compliance exercise, it is the golden thread through which solutions must be crafted
- Tokening: Including minimal and underdeveloped, or unachievable, social value commitments will score poorly and neglect to deliver wider social benefit. This will fail to instil confidence in a tenderer’s ability to deliver tangible social benefits
- Greenwashing: Presenting unsupported claims about environmental practices. This includes using buzzwords such as ‘low emmissions’ or ‘carbon reduction’ without substantiating these claims with tangible and measurable evidence or developed solutions.
In essence, social value is not an afterthought. It is a significant consideration which bidders must integrate into solutions. The Irish Government’s new public procurement policy is likely to strengthen this concept and place further emphasis on the importance of social value when evaluating tender submissions.
To align with the new procurement policy, score highly in tender submissions and deliver tangible social benefits, bidders should pay particular attention to:
- Creating employment opportunities for disadvantaged and underrepresented groups
- Providing apprenticeship opportunities
- Promoting social enterprise
- Improving accessibility
- Increasing small to medium enterprise participation
- Improving resilience of the local supply chain
- Enhancing sustainability.
How can EiB help?
At EiB, we are experienced in embedding social value into tender solutions and submissions within Ireland and the UK. Our strong team of bid consultants can apply their expertise to support tenderers across sectors as they bid in Ireland under the newly established public procurement policy.