At the core of our not-for-profit organisation lies a deep commitment to social value. We’re dedicated to creating meaningful, positive change in our local communities.
By prioritising social value in all our decisions and initiatives, we aim to foster a widespread culture of responsibility and community engagement.
The Role of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Delivering Social, Economic and Environmental Value
The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 (SVA), makes it a legal requirement for public bodies to consider how they might improve the social, economic and environmental wellbeing of their local area and The Procurement Act 2023 introduces significant changes to the public procurement landscape, particularly benefiting small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The Procurement Act emphasizes the importance of maximizing public benefit in contracting, aligning with the Social Value Model (PPN002).
Social Value Requirements Within Call Off Contracts
The types of social value initiatives and requirements set within call-off contracts under our frameworks will be defined by each members social value commitments or priorities to incorporate social, economic and environmental wellbeing within their procurements and are likely to include some of those set out in the social value model of the Procurement Act in accordance with PPN002 or similar:
Examples of Social Value Priorities
- Fair work: that offers fair wages and good working conditions. Help people get a job, stay in work, and progress in their careers, with good employment opportunities across the country.
- Skills for growth: supporting growth sectors and addressing skills gaps.
- Resilient, innovative and flexible supply chains: Support economic growth through enabling resilient businesses, opportunities for small businesses and voluntary, community and social enterprises.
- Sustainable procurement practices: reducing carbon footprints, minimising waste, and promoting the use of clean energy and green technologies.
- Support the reduction in crime through community cohesion, awareness raising and action.
- Employment and training for those who face barriers to employment.
- Creating a pipeline of opportunities for the contract workforce, reducing barriers to entry for underrepresented groups.
- Increasing productivity through physical and mental wellbeing: in the supply chain and communities in the relevant area.
Social value award criteria under framework call off contracts should be proportionate to the contract and refined to suit the condition of the market which will support SMEs in being able to deliver social value as part of framework contract awards.
The Benefits of Working with SMEs
SMEs play a crucial role in the economy by driving innovation, creating jobs, and supporting local communities. Profits made by SMEs without external shareholders can more easily be reinvested into the workforce, processes and products that deliver value to clients.
There are many benefits of working with SMEs such as:
- Good customer service, due to highly skilled and experienced workforces and smaller chains of command.
- SMEs are often more adaptable and agile to situations than larger organisations due to their smaller nature, which allows them to respond quickly and flexibly to urgent needs and changing requirements and provide the most suitable solution.
- Using local SMEs can also support with reducing carbon footprints associated with delivery helping to support public sector organisations in reaching net zero.
- They also create local jobs, and are often invested and wanting to contribute in the communities in which they work in.
Supporting SME Access to Framework Opportunities
The Procurement Act 2023 introduces significant reforms aimed at enhancing the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in public sector procurement. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) accounted for 99.9% of the UK business population at the start of 2024, with 99.2% being small businesses with fewer than 50 employees. The Government wants to leverage the power of public sector procurement to open up competition in public contracts to SMEs and remove barriers to their participation. The Procurement Act 2023 (Act) introduces a number of reforms intended to remove unnecessary burdens and costs in order to make it easier for SMEs to access public procurement opportunities, including placing a new duty on contracting authorities to have regard to SME participation and consider removing or reducing barriers to entry.
Pre-Market Engagement and Tender Support Activities
- We undertake extensive Pre Market Engagement (PME) and ensure one of the agenda topics is to understand what barriers SME’s face in applying for framework tenders to enable us to try and address these whilst educating SME’s on our tender and evaluation process so they are prepared and understand how to complete EEM Framework tender documents.
- The Act encourages contracting authorities to ensure greater visibility of upcoming public sector opportunities and requires preliminary market engagement to involve suppliers at an early stage to allow them sufficient time to prepare for an up and coming tender process. EEM publishes (UK2) Preliminary Market Engagement notices to make the market aware we are undertaking engagement and we conduct Meet the Buyer sessions with interested organisations to advise them of the opportunity, seek input and feedback from them and update suppliers on the tender timetable to enable them to plan and prepare.
- We record all topic discussions as part of preliminary market engagement to be transparent and ensure suppliers who are unable to attend or don’t see the opportunity until the engagement period has finished to have sight of key topics discussed and tender timetable disclosed to prepare them for the tender.
- As part of Preliminary Market Engagement sessions we support suppliers register with our eSourcing providers portal and demonstrate use of it.
EEM typically undertakes preliminary market engagement between 9-12 months before the expiry of an existing framework to give the market advance notice to plan in time for the tender and to allow the market sufficient time to engage with us. The engagement process we have established encourages SME participation in our tender processes.
We have adapted our tender assessment and evaluation process based on feedback to make it more accessible for SME’s and those organisations who don’t have bid teams.
EEM use subject matter experts within our network to ensure any accreditations, qualifications or regulatory requirements set within a tender pack are necessary to ensure we aren’t setting requirements to high or adding in unecessary requirements that would block access for SME’s. We ensure in accordance with requirements of The Procurement Act that suppliers aren’t asked to have insurance in place until they are awarded a call off contract via any of our frameworks although most will typically hold insurances anyway. We also work with our Members to ensure any insurances or requirements being set in a call off contract are necessary and proportionate to the contract being awarded.
EEM have robust commission declaration process in place across our frameworks and suppliers working via an EEM Framework or DPS Agreement are expected to be paid in 30 days by the Member as per the implied 30 day payment terms in public contracts. EEM supports the introduction via the Act of strengthened provisions for prompt payment throughout the supply chain and new reporting requirements via payment compliance notices, aimed at improving transparency and encouraging faster payments within the supply chain which will benefit SMEs working on public sector contracts.
How EEM Enables SME Participation in Tendering
All our opportunities are clearly advertised via our eSourcing provider Delta and directly into Find a Tender Service (FTS) / Central Digital Platform (CDP).
Under The Procurement Act the Central Digital Platform (CDP), is the new hub for suppliers to manage and share their business information for public procurement. Suppliers are expected to be registered on the platform and completed their business information so their details can be used for multiple bids using the CDP share code.
A share code is a unique identifier generated by the platform that suppliers can use to securely share their information with contracting authorities as part of a bid. This cuts down on duplication and administrative burden allowing suppliers to maintain their information on the Central Digital Platform and share with organisations when they are tendering for an opportunity.
We use the Procurement Specific Questionnaire (PSQ) available electronically via our eSourcing provider, Delta and have reviewed our tender documentation using information gathered from preliminary market engagement to help reduce barriers and encourage SME participation in our framework opportunities. Some of the ways in which we have done this is through the use of streamlined pass/fail evaluation questions and evidence based upload questions and inviting suppliers to an evaluation presentation session to cut down on written quality questions which are often barrier for SME’s due to the administrative burden and tight timescales to complete documentation.
We run all our framework tenders on a minimum 10 week but typically 12 week tender period with sufficient clarification question and answer periods to allow SME’s and all organisations enough time to understand the requirements, ask questions and respond to the tender.
Our eSourcing provider, Delta has a help desk support team with web chat, telephone and email support available to help suppliers report any technical issues or simply to help them navigate using the system.