Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

My understanding is that all aspects of these issues are being reviewed as part of that. I do not know specifically about the voluntary living wage, but in the short term a big focus is being placed on procurement that includes a number of diversity metrics, including ethnicity, disability and women leaders of organisations.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, when the forthcoming Green Paper is published, will the Minister discuss with her colleagues the idea of providing government incentives for public services and others to join together in procurement at local levels? Social value can be cascaded into the wider economic value that can accrue when different agencies and institutions are able to jointly procure, in a way that has been pioneered in areas such as Preston and my own city of Sheffield. Then we can see a much greater critical mass developed, which can have a major impact on the growth and productivity of an area as well as the social value we have discussed this morning.

[Baroness Barran]

The noble Lord makes a very important point. The proportion of procurement spending in the Preston area has increased almost fourfold in the past four years, with big economic impacts. We are already working to support smaller voluntary organisations to be able to bid in consortia so that they are not excluded, although I appreciate that that is wider than the point he is making.