Abstract
Public procurement accounts for almost 20% of Spain’s gross domestic product (GDP). The current legislation allows for the inclusion of social considerations in contracting processes, hence the interest of this study, which defines the procedures and improvement actions for socially efficient public procurement. The Delphi technique has been used, based on online surveys completed by 71 Spanish experts. The universe includes the set of nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTs), as well as a number of agents with the potential to intervene in the analysis process, namely, academia, the business sector, and public administrations. There is an increasing call for the inclusion of social considerations in tender procedures. However, to date, few studies have provided detailed insight into the inclusion of these social aspects. This study contributes to the scientific literature by identifying six possible strategies for including social considerations into public tenders, namely: objectivizing procedures, generating monitoring tools, developing information and training actions for decision-makers, incorporating awareness-raising initiatives, creating transparency systems, and including information and communication technologies (ICTs). The following four key action areas were also detected: social clauses, reserved markets, social impact assessment, and innovation in public procurement. A consensus was reached on four frames for incorporating the strategies and action areas, namely: socio-economic, procedural, competence, and conceptual. This allows for the efficient inclusion of social considerations into public tenders, thereby generating a twofold impact—one via the goods or services acquired, and the second via the impact on the process of producing said goods or services.
Highlights
The entry into force in March 2018 of Law 9/2017 of 8 November on Public Service Contracts provided the Spanish State with an opportunity to include other results into the public procurement contract processes, moving beyond the merely economistic approach that had prevailed among public tenders in recent years
The origins of the social clauses included in the new Spanish law lie in “socially responsible public procurement” (SRPP), a concept defined in 2011 by the European Commission as “contracting operations that take into account one or more of the following social considerations: employment opportunities, good employment, compliance with social and labor rights, social inclusion, equal opportunities, accessibility for all, consideration for sustainability criteria, including ethical trade issues and broader voluntary compliance with corporate social responsibility (CSR), whilst abiding by the consolidated principles of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and procurement directives”
The theoretical implications correspond to a perspective change, in which the price-based bidding model is substituted with public procurement systems, where the efficiency of the outputs in relation to inputs is considered the main goal, and it is possible to prioritize the optimization of outputs
Summary
The entry into force in March 2018 of Law 9/2017 of 8 November on Public Service Contracts provided the Spanish State with an opportunity to include other results into the public procurement contract processes, moving beyond the merely economistic approach that had prevailed among public tenders in recent years. The objectives underlying the regulations included in this law are, firstly, to ensure greater transparency in public procurement, and secondly, to secure better value for money. It contemplates reserved percentage markets in order to guarantee contracts for groups at risk of exclusion, as well as social clauses, replacing references to “the best financial offer” for “optimum value for money”. The origins of the social clauses included in the new Spanish law lie in “socially responsible public procurement” (SRPP), a concept defined in 2011 by the European Commission as “contracting operations that take into account one or more of the following social considerations: employment opportunities, good employment, compliance with social and labor rights, social inclusion (including disabled persons), equal opportunities, accessibility for all, consideration for sustainability criteria, including ethical trade issues and broader voluntary compliance with corporate social responsibility (CSR), whilst abiding by the consolidated principles of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and procurement directives”
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