Equal - Digital Repository

Background

BEST Procurement is a major initiative led by Social Enterprise East Midlands (SEEM), bringing together a partnership of agencies from the public sector, social enterprise support organisations and experts, and social enterprises themselves. SEEM is the regional voice for social enterprise. Its aim is to create an environment where social enterprises are encouraged to develop and enabled to grow. 

The public sector is one of the largest purchasers of goods and services in the UK and is the main customer for many of the services that social enterprises offer today. With a focus on best value for money spent, public sector agencies increasingly are required to achieve additional social, environmental and community benefits through their procurement function. This represents a unique opportunity for social enterprises, with their social, environmental and community focus, to increase their role as suppliers to the public sector.

Aims

BEST Procurement aims to improve the correlation between public sector expenditure and public benefit, positioning social enterprise as a key delivery vehicle in achieving this goal. It focuses on social enterprise because of the potential to contribute to improved labour market equality through challenging and enhancing standard labour market practices and delivering services in an inclusive way.

Objectives

• Assist social enterprises in developing their capacity as suppliers for the public sector

• Provide public sector agencies the opportunity to test innovative approaches towards achieving broader public benefit through mainstream expenditure

• Act as a clearing house for market intelligence on public sector demand and the supply of sustainable business solutions in the East Midlands, enabling social enterprises and public sector agencies to identify relevant opportunities

Activities

• Providing in-depth evidence in response to key questions such as “How can public sector expenditure be used more efficiently while achieving better social outcomes?” and “What added social value do social enterprises offer as suppliers?”
• Disseminating practice in the form of tools and reports to support further work on achieving public benefit through procurement in a policy and practice context.

Target Groups 

The social enterprises working in the East Midlands

Social enterprises secure £2.4m contracts.

The incubation project, led by Genesis Social Enterprise Centre, invested £160,000 in setting up five social enterprises that have already secured £1.6 million contracts from public sector operating in a range of fields and creating quality inclusive employment. They project to secure up to a further £2.4 million contracts in the next six months.

Replication of alternative education centres

The Unique Network developed an approach to replication, supported by Leicester Community action Network. The Unique Network has already successfully supported a new alternative education centre in Gainsborough to open in September 2007. The second centre will be opened in Northampton in January 2008. These centres provide alternative education, drop in facilities and employment in disadvantaged areas.

Publication of major resource to support social innovation.

The partnership has published “Social Enterprise and the Public Sector- A Practical Guide to Law and Policy”. This document is a major new resource for those in the public sector who want to support social innovation and covers Procurement and broader Commissioning topics. It also covers topics that may be useful to social enterprises. It was developed as a response to all the problems and barriers the Partnership came across in the course of their work and was written by market leaders Anthony Collins Solicitors

Achieving policy through procurement

The Partnership developed a lot of new practice with respect to achieving policy through procurement. The partnership integrated social enterprise into approaches to sustainable procurement developed by Forum for the Future, tested with the local authority and NHS partners and being rolled out nationally. Northampton County Council Developed a specification writing toolkit to assist those looking to maximize the social, environmental and economic benefits of their procurement. Nottingham City Council became a pathfinder for the “local area pathfinders” project examining successful approaches to working with the third sector.