Page 2875 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 29 June 2011

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(2) calls on the Assembly Secretariat to develop a policy for social procurement and ensure that, wherever possible, social enterprises are preferred and the Speaker to report back to the Assembly by December 2011; and

(3) calls on the Government to:

(a) identify goods and services for which social procurement should be prioritised during the procurement process;

(b) establish at least three demonstration projects to trial the implementation of procurement processes and outcomes for social procurement tenders or contracts in the 2011-2012 financial year;

(c) ensure that Shared Services—Procurement work with all other directorates and agencies to identify social procurement opportunities and the subsequent demonstration projects set out in paragraph (3)(b);

(d) ensure Shared Services—Procurement has comprehensive processes in place so that all contracts and tenders are considered for social procurement potential;

(e) create stronger requirements for Government agencies to follow social procurement guidelines, including having to report on social procurement outcomes in their annual reports; and

(f) report back to the Assembly by June 2012.”.

The amendment goes to the fact that we need to tighten up some of the wording in this document. Clause (2) of the motion, for example, relates to the Assembly Secretariat, so we leave that as that; that is a matter for the Assembly.

Clause (3) calls on the government to implement some social procurement practices into the procurement framework and process. The government is supportive of the direction in this part of the motion but the amendments go to this issue to make sure that the motion better reflects what is practicable in the current context. This will improve the likelihood that the actions proposed in the motion will be successfully implemented.

The amendment goes to remove the categories of procurement that should be prioritised in the procurement process. The motion as it stands lists catering, recycling, maintenance and landscaping as a non-exhaustive list of goods and services that should be prioritised for social procurement. If I use Cafe Ink as an example here, you can see that there are not enough social enterprises with the capacity to deliver the government’s requirement for these types of procurement. Cafe Ink obviously can provide some catering to the ACT government; however, it is not able to provide catering to all of the directorates across the ACT. But as the sector develops, we will be able to continue to support further development in that area. We will continue to assess procurements on a case-by-case basis to determine which could be suitable for social procurement.


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