We use cookies to personalise and enhance your experience on this site. By clicking Accept or continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of marketing and social media cookies as described in our Privacy Policy.
Accept and close
Public procurement is one of government’s most significant economic levers. Procurement has traditionally focused heavily on price and conventional measures of value, without consistently considering the quality, terms and conditions and developmental potential of the jobs supported through public spending.
In 2022, IFOW translated its Good Work Charter into probing amendments to the Procurement Bill for APPG on the Future of Work co-chair Lord Jim Knight to table. The amendments, drafted by Anna Thomas MBE, sought to make the impact of procurement on local good work an explicit consideration, including employment gains and losses, terms and conditions and the quality of work available. It attracted cross-party, backbench support.
During the parliamentary debate initiated by these amendments, the Government identified the National Procurement Policy Statement as the appropriate vehicle through which the challenge could be addressed.
The subsequent National Procurement Policy Statement required contracting authorities to consider whether suppliers support high-quality jobs, safe and healthy working conditions, fair pay, opportunity and progression. This helped establish the important principle raised by the probing amendments.
This summer, the new PM has strengthened and centred this direction through reforms to the Social Value Model, which now place Good Jobs at the heart of the outcomes public bodies can seek through procurement. This formal prioritisation of good work in procurement specifies a 10% weighting from £1M and 20% weighting from £5M plus measurable KPIs, described by the government as ‘using its £90bn purchasing power to create good jobs, skills and opportunities locally.’
This welcome move, backed by the latest IFOW research, demonstrates how a research framework can travel into parliamentary debate and then into the machinery through which government shapes markets. Procurement can become a tool not only for purchasing services, but for improving job quality and conditions, experience and opportunity.
As devolved institutions gain greater scope to shape economic development, skills and procurement this year, the Social Value Model is highly relevant to Mayors across the country, providing a route to connect purchasing power with local labour-market evidence and good-work standards.
This establishes the next frontier to research and test: connecting procurement, good-work standards, labour-market intelligence and technological transition.
