Cities want to use social clauses in public procurement
Last Tuesday (20 October), EUROCITIES, the Network of Major European Cities, organised a “Social Affairs Forum” on inclusive labour markets. This issue is of particular relevance today. The crisis has aggravated the phenomenon of exclusion of certain categories of individuals from labour markets, and these people are unfortunately likely to be the last ones to benefit from a potential recovery. This is why EUROCITIES interestingly defines inclusive labour markets as a focus on ensuring that “everyone of working age can participate in paid work, especially vulnerable and disadvantaged people”.
Cities have of course a key role to play in this process, and they have several tools to do so. Local authorities can work towards a better matching between vocational training and local labour markets needs, support local entrepreneurship through grants and training, provide individualised pathways to employment for the most marginalized people, or reduce barriers to employment by providing services in line with people’s needs, such as quality and flexible childcare or transport services.
However, another powerful instrument cities have to strengthen the inclusiveness of their labour markets deserves specific attention: the use of social clauses in public procurement. Invited to represent civil society organisations in the conference, our Director Pierre Baussand insisted on the fact that if cities manage to challenge some prejudices they may have when dealing with public procurement, important social progress can be achieved through this means. Public authorities do for example have the power to reserve contracts to companies that integrate disabled or disadvantaged people, or to reserve certain contracts for social, health and other services delivered to the person to non-profit organisations and social enterprises. They can also make use of the Best Price Quality Ratio (BPQR) to include quality criteria and social considerations: this might ensure that the selected contractor promotes for example the employment of long term unemployed, disadvantaged minorities or socially marginalized groups. He gave concrete examples from the cities of Barcelona, Burgos, Edinburgh and from Italy, included in the Social Platform guide “Public Procurement for Social Progress”. This guide illustrates how member states and contracting authorities can make the best use of the possibilities offered by the new Public Procurement Directive to achieve social policy objectives through public procurement.
Representatives of public authorities showed strong interest for the Guide during the debate. Officials from major European cities such as Rotterdam and Nantes also gave examples on how they made use of the social clauses of the Directive in their city, for instance by prioritizing companies that work with former unemployed people, or adapting working hours in the field of cleaning services so that nobody is excluded from the sector.
Furthermore, all the participants in the debate, namely local authorities, trade unions, NGOs and businesses, agreed on the need for cooperation and dialogue with stakeholders when launching an action linked to inclusive labour markets. Thanks to its expertise and the experience of its European and national members in the field of social inclusion, Social Platform is able to provide policy-makers with inspiring examples that demonstrate successes of inclusive labour markets strategies. In this prospect, the fact that EUROCITIES and a significant number of local public authorities already expressed their desire to further exchange information with the Platform will undoubtedly open the door to fruitful mutual learning in the near future.
