Social Value Procurement Policy (draft)

When we published ‘Our Commitment to Inclusive Growth’ in 2020, one of the key commitments we made was to review and update our approach to procurement to support our inclusive growth ambitions.

We have now developed a draft social value procurement policy (copy attached under Documents section), which seeks to implement social value considerations within our procurement (purchasing) processes.

Whilst seeking to achieve the best commercial outcome from our procurement activities, it is our aim to also ensure that the purchase of goods, services and works achieves value for money by making a positive difference to the people and communities in Belfast. We cannot afford not to - a missed opportunity to deliver social value is a cost that must be absorbed elsewhere in public services.

We have defined social value as:

“A commitment to using our influence and procurement power to help deliver the Belfast Agenda; to drive inclusive economic growth, improve the local environment and support vulnerable people – while ensuring the best possible value for money when purchasing goods, services and works for the people of Belfast”

Our message to our supply chain is clear – we want to do business with suppliers who have a strong people, environmental and ethical focus within their business.

We now want to hear your views on the following key aspects of our draft social value procurement policy:

1. How we have defined social value and the objectives we have set.
2. How we plan to use reserved contracts (where appropriate) to support social enterprises and co-operatives.
3. How we plan to select/shortlist suppliers based on their organisational behaviours/policies (selection criteria).
4. How we plan to score social value as part of the evaluation process and the minimum scoring thresholds we plan to introduce.
5. The social value initiatives (award criteria) suppliers can offer us as part of the evaluation process.
6. How we plan to reward suppliers through the evaluation process who pay employees the real living wage and do not use zero-hour contracts.
7. How we plan to implement our policy.

Please click on the Survey tab below to get involved and have your say. You can also ask us a question, using the questions and answers (Q&A) tab or come along to one of our online information sessions.