Agenda item

To receive a presentation on Socially Responsible Procurement Policy.

The Chairman invited the Section 151 Officer to introduce the presentation. The Section 151 Officer outlined that this policy would be a single coherent framework that would look to draw together legislative requirements, policy initiatives and aspirations. The policy would be delivered by a Social Responsibility Toolkit, which would support both suppliers and commissioners to maximise the way that they deliver through procurement activity. Furthermore, there could be the potential to place certain instructions into the toolkit as expectations as a minimum for contracts to provide.

The Section 151 Officer then handed over to Senior Procurement Specialist, Luana O’Neill, who outlined the following priorities which had been identified by the Council that would represent its values and beliefs:

• A Wiltshire first approach
• Local Training and employment
• Partners in the community
• Green Economy and Stable Environment
• Ethical Procurement and Well-being focus

The Senior Procurement Specialist outlined how the five priorities would link to the Wiltshire Council Business plan as well as how the procurement function would apply this link practically. Furthermore, detail was provided for each of the five priorities on how they would be delivered and what the Council would want to achieve from the successful delivery of each priority. Examples of the anticipated qualitative benefits from the adoption of the policy were outlined, including but not limited to, the reduction in carbon footprint and young people in foster care, the increase of cash savings and uptake of trades and careers.

The Section 151 Officer then provided an overview of the governance and reporting of the policy, with it stated that the Commercial Board would oversee the delivery of the policy and that the Cabinet Member who acts as the Council’s Social Value Champion would be a representative of Social Value within the Board. Once the policy was approved and the toolkits had been set up, there would be an aspect of contractors submitting regular monitoring reports to be assessed against indicators and metrics on the social value of procurement. The Commercial Board would review the Social Value register on a regular basis to provide challenge and scrutiny to contractor’s performance where necessary.

The following comments were then received from Cllr Nick Botterill, Cabinet Member for Development Control, Strategic Planning, Finance, Procurement and Commissioning, who suggested that initially he had some concerns regarding additional costs and whether there would there be a bureaucracy process. Furthermore, whether the policy would it lead to box-ticking rather than a meaningful impact and whether it would lead to the range of suppliers being reduced. However, Cllr Botterill had since been assured that such concerns would not be the case and that he had been persuaded that this would be a reasonable approach with benefits.

The Chairman sought clarification from the Section 151 Officer, that such concerns would not come to pass, to which it was clarified in relation to bureaucracy and tick-boxes that there would not be an increase in size of the procurement and commissioning team, nor had there been a request for an increase in resources.  Regarding costs, there could be an uplift in the cost of contracts, but that would be down to the Council. The Officer noted that some of the concerns would be predicated on the application of the toolkits through a cost and quality ratio. The Section 151 Officer noted that rather than being involved in every procurement, it could be a case of examining the bigger ones and then allocating the others to budget managers.

The following comments were received by Members of the Committee:

·       It was stated that the balance of the award criteria would become important as if the Council was not planning to make changes to the award criteria it could be questioned if there was any benefit.

·       It was voiced that it was positive to see such a policy on the table following previous enquiries as to whether the resources provided in contracts could be used for benefit, such as training young people in apprenticeships.

·       It was suggested that there was no information within the policy to specifically outline benefits, timescales, requirements, how the council would buy better or how the potential impact would be measured. It was stated by the Section 151 Officer that the toolkits would provide metrics and how the policy would be applied, with it up to the individual service department to set the level of metrics they would like within a contract. Once the toolkits have been produced then metrics could be provided to the Committee.

·       It was questioned where there was a metric to measure social value.

·       Concern was raised that the policy might limit the choice of who the Council could outsource to if the policy was over-prescriptive.

At the conclusion of discussion, it was,

Resolved:

The Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee agreed:

1.     To welcome the proposed introduction of a Socially Responsible Procurement Policy in the council’s procurement processes, which will be determined by Cabinet on 29^th November 2022, along with the associated Toolkit, Delivery Plan and a social value impact reporting system.

2.     To ask the Chair and Vice-Chair to investigate further how the impacts of the Socially Responsible Procurement Policy will be measured, evaluated and made available for Scrutiny discussion.

3.     To agree that further Scrutiny input will take place on the Socially Responsible Procurement Toolkits in 2023.