Resources

1. Barriers to social procurement in the construction industry: a subcontractor’s perspective (99KB)

2. The job seeking experiences of refugees and migrants in the Australian construction industry(30KB)

3. Integrating ex-offenders into the Australian construction industry (32KB)

4. Assessing the impact of Indigenous social procurement policies (210KB)

5. Preventing Youth Homelessness through Social Procurement in Construction (33KB)

6. The risks and opportunities of social procurement from a social enterprise perspective (39KB)

7. The risks and opportunities of social procurement: a cross-sector collaboration perspective (40KB)

8. A typology of social procurement champions in the construction industry (39KB)

9. Developing theoretically and empirically sound social procurement programs that do what they claim to do (91KB)

10. Pathways to meaningful and sustainable employment for people with disability in the Construction industry: a review of the evidence (or the lack of) (104KB)

11. How to attract, support and retain more women into the construction industry and improve workplace wellbeing for everyone (42KB)

12. How to promote social procurement in your organisation (48KB)

13. How to develop an effective social procurement strategy (42KB)

14. Developing social enterprise through social procurement – learning from the Scottish experience (43KB)

15. Creating social value through ‘alternative provision’ in the construction industry (43KB)

16. The art of ‘making-do’ in construction social procurement: a bricolage perspective (49KB)

17. Champions of social procurement in the construction industry (28KB)

This document summarises the results of a research project to explore how leading champions of social procurement in the construction industry are promoting social procurement in their organisations and the industry more generally.

18. Youth unemployment and social procurement in the construction industry (3.5MB)

This is a presentation entitled “Youth unemployment and social procurement in the construction industry” given at the Round Table on Social and Indigenous Preferential Procurement hosted by Swinburne University of Technology on 25/6/21.

19. Wellbeing Public Policy Needs More Theory (730KB)

Everyone is talking about using a ‘wellbeing’ approach to social impact measurement. This paper advocates for a more cautious approach owing to our poor understanding of both wellbeing and policy applications of adopting it for measuring social impact.

20. COMMUNITY BENEFITS AGREEMENTS (2.1MB)

This is a recent report on Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs). Advocates of CBAs argue that they provide a bottom-up, community-driven approach to creating social value in the communities in which we all build. This contrasts with the top-down, mandated and highly targeted approach to social procurement we have adopted in Australia. 

21. Maximising Social Value from Infrastructure Projects (5MB)

This is a report by the UK Institution of Civil Engineers (2020) entitled “Maximising social value from infrastructure projects.” While there may be interesting lessons to be learned from the attached report, differences in policy approaches and foci create unique opportunities and challenges for implementing social procurement in Australia.

22. Buy with Impact Social Procurement in Canada 2022 Report (2.5MB)

This report provides interesting insights into social procurement progress across Canada. The report includes some brief case studies construction, infrastructure, and development organisations which have implemented social procurement and Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs) into their projects.

23. CIOB Report on Social Value and SMEs (5.6MB)

A report from the UK’s Chartered Institute of Building on Social Value and SMEs which shows that despite a range of procurement policies being introduced across the UK which seek to imbed social value into procurement and up-front development planning and application decisions, the vast majority of construction SMEs are not familiar with the concept of social value, how it is delivered and how it is measured.

24. SOCIAL VALUE IN CONSTRUCTION Benchmarking Report 2023 (3.2MB)

A recent report on Social Value in Construction from the UK Social Value Portal. Methodology for measuring social value is largely based around the TOMs.

25. Self Attestation Removing Barriers to Diversity in Supply Chains (1.3MB)

An excellent and thoughtful report from Buy Social Canada  which critiques how existing methods of third party certification which are mean to identify and include diverse suppliers can be counterproductive to those aims. The report finds shifting away from third party certification towards self-attestation will remove real and perceived barriers of inclusion for diverse-owned businesses and social enterprises, and support their participation and engagement in the procurement process.

26. Measuring What Matters Australia’s First Wellbeing Framework (4.4MB)

This is Australia’s first national wellbeing framework entitled ‘Measuring What Matters.’ The framework proposes 50 indicators across 5 wellbeing themes which will be used to provide a basis for government policy makers to better understand progress towards a more healthy, secure, sustainable, cohesive and prosperous Australia. There is also an online dashboard which is to be updated annually to take stock of progress and identify priorities for future. 

27. Achieving the UN SDGs Through the Integration of Social Procurement in Construction Projects (431KB)

A great new book chapter entitled “Achieving the UN SDGs Through the Integration of Social Procurement in Construction Projects” by David LePage and Emma Renaerts from Buy Social Canada. Draws an important and clear connection between social procurement in construction and the SDGs. There are also numerous examples of how to do this in practice. There is strong emphasis on the potential role of social enterprises.

28. Research Roundtable on Social and Indigenous Preferential Procurement (2.8MB)

This is the final report of a Research Roundtable on Social and Indigenous Preferential Procurement held at Swinburne University in September 2021.

29. Social Value Toolkit for Architecture (2.6MB)

This Social Value Toolkit for Architecture was produced in the UK and provides examples of how SV is being created by architects in practice. It recognises that while the UK Social Value Act 2012 was never specifically intended to apply to the design of places and buildings, architects increasingly need to demonstrate Social Value on their projects.

30. Measuring social value in infrastructure projects: insights from the public sector (2.9MB)

This very detailed and rigorous UK report provides an overview of different methods for measuring social value in infrastructure projects.

31. Maximising social value in design (18MB)

An interesting guide for design teams on maximising social value in design from the UK Social value Portal based on the TOMs methodology.

32. Interview with Professor Jane Lynch (35KB)

This is a transcript of an interview with Professor Martin Loosemore, University of Technology Sydney, and Professor Jane Lynch, Head of Centre of Public Value Procurement at Cardiff University, UK. It tackles subjects such as: How to define social value; What it looks like in practice; How you embed it into tenders and the procurement process; How to engage with the supply market; and general tips about getting started on your social value journey.

33. Communicating the impact of social procurement (42KB)

This is the 17th fact sheet about recent international peer-reviewed social procurement research. Social procurement is essentially about creating ‘social value’ and therefore our work takes place on a very public stage. Effectively communicating the social impact of our work is essential to garner support for what we do and to enable us to learn lessons and continuously improve. To this end, this factsheet provides insights into some basic principles of effective social impact reporting.

34. Is your social procurement as innovative as you think? (43KB) 

It’s simple to make a big claim that you are innovating. But could you prove it if you were asked? Social innovation lies at the core of what government is trying to achieve with their social procurement policies. By incentivizing new partnerships between government, private, not-for-profit and other civil society organisations, the government is looking for its supply chains to come up with innovative ideas to tackle the increasingly complex social challenges society faces.This factsheet provides some basic insights into the principles of social innovation – what it means, why it’s challenging and how to measure and prove it.

35. The untapped potential of female skilled migrants in the construction industry (44KB)

This fact sheet summarises the results of recent research at UTS, which explored the untapped potential of female skilled migrants in the construction industry. Despite a major skills shortage and calls to diversify the industry, our results point to a significant gap between the rhetoric and reality of what the government and private construction sector says in public and does in practice.

36. Reducing youth unemployment and under-employment through social procurement: a case study of Multiplex’s Connectivity Centres (73KB)

This factsheet summarises the results of a recent three-year federally funded Australian Research Council research project lead by UTS into the potential of social procurement to reduce Australia’s unacceptably high rate of youth unemployment and under-employment. The fact sheet presents a case study of Multiplex’s Connectivity Centres © as an innovative exemplar of cross sector collaboration in the international construction industry which can help address such social challenges.

37. Community Benefits in Construction – Mandate, Design, and Implement Guide (3.1MB)

In Canada the process of responding to social procurement requirements on major construction and infrastructure projects is often undertaken via a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA). A CBA is a formal, legally binding and enforceable agreement between a developer and a community which defines in measurable terms the community benefits to be derived from a specific project. To be a valid, a CBA must have been developed through meaningful consultation  with key representatives of a project community. This is of course easier said than done and to assist in this process, the above guide from Buy Social in Canada breaks down the CBA process into three stages: Mandate, Design, and Implement. The report also includes additional reports, articles, guides and examples of community benefit agreements in construction.

38. Buying social justice through procurement: Report of project findings (2.3MB)

The attached report which was published in 2023 by Queen Mary University of London and is entitled ‘ Buying Social Justice Through Social Procurement.’ The research is based on a survey and interviews with three types of public bodies: local authorities (LAs); housing associations (HAs); and higher education institutions (HEIs), plus a major infrastructure project (HS2) and a transport authority that has been proactive in the use of social procurement (Transport for London). The report provides an interesting overview of social procurement policies in the EU, UK (England, Wales and Scotland), Spain, Germany, Australia, South Africa, the US. There are also some brief but interesting case studies of social procurement in practice in Councils, Housing Associations, Universities, City Deals and major infrastructure projects like HS2. The findings are re-iterate much of what we already know about the challenges of implementing social procurement the key success factors in doing so. The positive role of Unions in promoting social procurement (in contrast to Australia) is interesting.

 39. Will social procurement help close the gap?

A year on from the failed referendum to enshrine a First Nations Voice to Parliament in the Australian Constitution, I thought you may be interested in this article published in The Conversation this week by James Blackwell. 

The article raises important questions for us about the effectiveness of Indigenous Social Procurement in addressing Indigenous disadvantage. Although it does not specifically mention social procurement, the article criticises the government’s current attempts at Indigenous policy based on “economic empowerment,” pointing to policies being developed without meaningful codesign and engagement. Blackwell argues that these policies have not substantively moved the dial despite being around for 20 yrs. He also criticises the overexaggerated benefits of renewable energy as a driver of Indigenous economic power, arguing that this is not “economic development” for all mobs.

The gap between policy and practice reflects concerns raised in our social procurement Community of Practice – as summarised in a number of our facts sheets and freely available resources and case studies. This has been linked to a number of challenges we face as a newly emerging field of professional practice such as the lack of empirical research and the competitive tensions which prevent the sharing of lessons learnt to provide a reliable basis for evidence-based policy.

This is why we have set up this independent Community of Practice.

 40. Measuring and reporting social value - food for thought 

How we measure and report social value is a challenge we all face in our emerging field of social procurement practice. It’s critical that we think very carefully about the consequences of the tools, systems methodologies we use to do this. If we make the wrong choice, then with the best will in the world, we may inadvertently do more harm than good.

For those interested in how we do this effectively, here is a link  https://lnkd.in/edb5A6KV to an interesting debate in the UK at the moment which we should all reflect on in Australia as we continue to implement and measure the impact of social procurement policies.

 The letter in the link raises concerns by the UK Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector that social value is becoming driven by a highly simplified, standardised and commercialised approach to social value measurement and reporting which does not align with the social value which VCSE sector organisations create. If these organisations do not conform, this results in them losing opportunities to more commercially driven organisations which are prepared to gamify the system to fit into this approach.

VCSE sector organisations are a critical part of the social value ecosystem and the authors, who are all senior representatives of this group, caution that the way that social value is measured, reported and interpreted strongly influences public management practice. They warn that standardised and simplified approaches to measuring social value which may appeal to those who just want to ‘tick the box’  divert attention from the very people these policies are meant to help. They argue that ‘materiality’ rather than ‘performativity’ should lie at the heart of social procurement policy and practice.