Partnership and Procurement Support Service

Transcription

1 Partnership and Procurement Support Service Senscot and SFS manage the Partnership and Procurement Support Service - an initiative that provides a dedicated programme and resource to give practical support to social enterprise to: a) identify and respond well to public sector tender opportunities. b) explore and develop joint working opportunities with the SE community and wider third sector. Outcomes To ensure that social enterprises are better ready to respond to the service delivery opportunities presented by the current public service reform and sustainable procurement agendas. To improve the capacity of social enterprises to respond well to tender opportunities. This report not only highlights activities carried via this initiative during but also reflect on thoughts and findings in relation to social enterprises and their ability, awareness and readiness for tendering. Including general attitudes to partnership working and collaborative bidding. Findings are based on the premise that, through the Procurement Reform Act (Scotland) and increased use of Community Benefits in public sector tenders, there will be an increase in the number of social enterprises (SE s) successfully bidding and, in turn, winning contracts. The aim of the Act is to establish laws about sustainable public procurement; to maximise the social, environmental and economic benefits through effective and efficient procurement activity. The new rules will take effect in April Activity overview Social Enterprise Consortia development for ESF/Big Lottery Financial Inclusion bid. This involved facilitating and preparing partnership documents with six Social Enterprises in preparation for ITT. Tender review and MOU development work with five Homestart organisations in Aberdeenshire. To deliver a consortium bid. 1

2 General partnership development work to review or create MOU s for various Social Enterprise consortiums. Meetings and presentations undertaken, to provide advice and guidance on tendering processes and procurement tools. Providing social enterprises with planning tools and practical tips on identifying and preparing for tenders. Providing critique of social enterprise tender responses in advance of submissions. Presentations and workshops delivered to promote collaborative working and tendering. This has included the Bike Station workshop, CRNS conference and TSI information sessions. Public Sector Individual SE s have been provided with guidance and support for tender submissions, collaborative tendering and partnership working. This support has involved creating MOU s and guidance documents for collaborative working. Meetings held with various public sector commissioner and Housing Associations to identify contract opportunities and processes for Social Enterprise involvement. This included meetings with procurement teams from the NHS, Renfrewshire Council, North Ayrshire Council, Stirling Council and The Wheatley Group. Meetings have been held with Glasgow City Council and Scotland Excel to identify commodities for SE tendering opportunities. This also involved analysing their Community Benefits policy to identify a process for sharing Community Benefit commitments with SE s. This has also been extended to analysing the Clyde Valley City Deal Community Benefits approach to identify suitable opportunities. Private Sector Following meetings with BAM Construction, two events have been organised for Social Enterprise engagement. The first one, held in March, was a small workshop involving BAM, Senscot and three social enterprises. To help SE s understand the process of becoming supply chain partners to BAM. The second event is a Meet the Buyers to be held on 22 April, which will involve five large construction companies coming together with approximately twenty Social Enterprises to identify opportunities for collaborative working. The day is being facilitated by BAM, Senscot and CCI Scotland. Some observations 1. Tendering Support for SE s 2

3 Procurement support is available from a number of organisations. However, there is a need to clearly map this provision and detail the type of support available. It appears that SE s are not fully aware of the range of support available or are reticent to attend training and workshops. Tendering support is offered nationally through Just Enterprise and the Supplier Development Programme and at times locally through TSI s and Local Authorities. Also some private sector organisation are offering tendering and procurement workshops as part of their Community Benefits commitments. 2. Bidding for Public Sector contracts Generally there appears to be a lack of willingness to tender among many organisations. A variety of reasons are cited for this. The main reason is the complexity of competitive tendering and bureaucracy of servicing/supplying to the public sector. It is also apparent from recent examples that some SE s are involved in tendering as a last resort. For example, as Local Authorities move from SLA s & Grants to a competitive tendering process, this is forcing SE s to start bidding for contracts that are normally reserved to SLA s. Some examples of tendering barriers: Bidding often a very last resort due to complexity of competitive tendering processes Contract deliverables and performance measures may move SE away from their social purpose Common view that SE s can t compete financially with privates sector bidders and slanted towards price Delivering a contract against a set specification seen as a business risk to SE s, due to delivery capacity issues Not enough resource in the business to dedicate time to tendering General feeling that Public Sector contracts are complex and tendering is onerous 3. Business Readiness for Tendering It appears that there is huge disparity in SE s ability to tender. Large SE s are already successfully bidding and winning work. Micro and small SE s often struggle with the policy/compliance requirements to tender and the operational & financial delivery obligations. This includes: Lack of understanding to interpret and develop contract methodology Limited ability/knowledge to adequately cost their products/services Lack of policy documents required for PQQ s Little or no experience of analysing markets, risks/benefits and tender planning There also appears to be a lack of importance given to PCS and becoming involved in simple procurement processes such as examining contract notices, PIN (Prior Information Notices) or becoming involved in Quick Quotes. 4. Collaborative Tendering 3

4 Collaborative bidding is usually as a result of a necessity to bid for a contract and often a bit rushed. SE s should have a longer term vision to identify partners that will add value and increase delivery capacity. There is little evidence of successful partnerships being formed which have resulted in contract wins. One example of a successful collaborative bid is the Home Start partnership, which involved five Home Start s working together to bid for the provision of Childcare & Family Learning Support Services contract covering the whole of Aberdeenshire. Partnerships created to deliver public sector contracts need to have an effective working relationships, clear roles & responsibilities and some sort of organisational structure. It is perhaps more difficult for some SE s to fully endorse this due to having a management and board structure which can make finding common ground difficult. Also, the fear of possibly diluting their social aims, is a plausible reason for some of the barriers to collaborative bidding. 5. Opportunities as a result of Procurement Reform and CB Clauses There is an increase in the use of Community Benefits across LA s, however at present there is a lack of evidence to determine if more contracts are being successfully secured by SE s. As a result of the Procurement Reform Act and Sustainable Procurement Duty being enacted. You would expect more contract opportunities to present themselves for SE s during 2016 and beyond. Particularly now that procurers have the ability to; Lot more contracts into smaller value projects and implement statutory guidance addressing Fair Work Practices. Also, introduced is the minimum level of turnover which a contracting authority can require a business to have in order to bid, this will now be no more than 2 times the value of the contract. 6. Public Sector/Commissioners There appears to be a gap in the public sectors understanding of SE s the services they provide and the social value they bring. Community Benefits to date has been mixed in terms of stipulating requirements to support SE s. Some procurers ask bidders to stipulate supply chain opportunities for SE s or business support/mentoring for SE s and the wider third sector. Targeted Recruitment & Training in construction contracts remains the prominent CB delivery requirement. However, through new statutory guidance and sharing best practice (RfB), you would expect will start to provide more opportunities for SE s in service contracts. It should be noted, not all procurers score or provide a weighting on Community Benefits within tenders. 7. Early reflections Very few SE s are procurement savvy (particularly Small to Medium). However some are expressing a willingness to learn. Particularly the organisations that see tendering as an opportunity to increase growth and financially sustainability 4

5 The inclusion of Community Benefit requirements must be considered for any regulated procurement of 4m or more. Although, you could argue the trigger of 4m is set too high as a mandatory requirement as laid out in the Act. That said many LA already mandate Community Benefits at lower levels. Generally there appears to be a lack of priority by SE s to develop procurement capability or create tender ready documents For many SE s it may be more realistic for them to work as a supplier to larger organisations with a longer term plan to undertake direct tendering To date very few Public Sector procurers have used Community Benefits to maximise direct contract opportunities for SE s SE s could be best served by working in service clusters and proactively identify potential project partners for future contract opportunities. 8. Recommended next steps The following is a summary of the potential next steps to support the aforementioned findings and conclusions. Provide dedicated guidance and support to bidders (sole or consortia) in response to PQQ and ITT submissions. This includes, analysing bid prospects (SWOT Analysis), reviewing of PQQ & tender responses, providing guidance on tender questions and contract delivery specifications and sharing intelligence on procurement practices. Update and re-launch the RfB Register to include a clearer definition of core business activity and scale/scope of operational delivery. RfB Register rolled out to procurers to include a link to the Register in their ITT documentation. This will help ensure there is proactive engagement between bidders and SE s. Create a best practice suite of tender ready documents (common responses) with key learning points and checklist of mandatory documents. Continue to identify SE clusters that can potentially deliver similar products and services. Continue to liaise with the public sector to help identify contract opportunities for SE s. Map SE services and their needs with main contractors Community Benefits commitments and CSR objectives. Encourage public sector commissioners to share suppliers Community Benefit commitments with Senscot, RfB and SE Networks. With a view to matching commitments with SE needs. For example, business mentoring commitments (supplier) matched with individual SE needs. 5