Social enterprise and public procurement

A research programme funded by EQUAL BEST Procurement

by Tim Curtis and Patricia Worgan, Sustainable Development Research Centre

BEST Procurement stands for Benefiting the Economy and Society Through Procurement.

It is a second round Equal CIP Programme that is being developed by SEEM. The programme will focus on combating labour market discrimination by channelling the purchasing power of the public sector, using social enterprise as a vehicle, combining social inclusion and economic growth.

The aim of the Development Partnership is to increase equal opportunities in the labour market and diversity within the supply chain by channelling public sector purchasing power through social enterprise. This will achieve economic growth in a sustainable and equitable manner, reflecting the needs of communities of interest to access quality, meaningful employment.

The objectives of the programme are:

• Influencing public sector procurement strategies-To enable the public sector to pursue economic, environmental and social objectives concurrently through channelling existing purchasing power.
• Creating market opportunities for social enterprises - To create social enterprise market opportunities within the public sector, focused on labour market integration and the needs of communities of interest.
• Developing the capacity of social enterprises - Ensure the development of social enterprises capitalise on the market opportunities created through winning and sustaining contracts.
• Achieving labour market integration- Through creating additional and improved employment opportunities within social enterprise for people experiencing labour market discrimination and/ or disadvantage.

The Sustainable Development Research Centre is the research partner on the programme and this is a developing record of the research process.

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Research protocol
• Research question
• Theoretical underpinnings
• Supply side interventions

The EU EQUAL programme is for everyone, nobody has exclusive rights to the material generated, what we write is for all the partners specifically (and everyone generally) and we want to encourage a collaborative approach to the research and the reflections on the research.

This resource is constantly growing and changing, please take the contents as they are intended to be: reflections on a growing and developing research programme, not advice or a complete piece of work.