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Promoting skills through public procurement

29 May 2009

The Office of Government Commerce and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) have jointly developed guidance ' Promoting Skills through Public Procurement'. This new guidance sets out how public sector bodies can embed skills and apprenticeships in their procurement processes.

No-one can be in any doubt that it is vital that to continue to invest in the nation's skills, to develop a skills base that is capable of driving innovation, productivity and growth as the economy improves. Government's public procurement programme – worth around £175 billion a year – provides a significant opportunity to promote skills development during the downturn and beyond. DIUS is already developing and implementing specific approaches with ConstructionSkills, e-Skills and Asset Skills in their sectors.

In 'New Industry, New Jobs' published in April 2009, the Government made the commitment to routinely consider skills issues and promote training through its procurements. That means using procurement to promote investment in skills both when letting new contracts, and working with existing contractors on a voluntary basis

Within that overarching commitment, government has made a series of more specific commitments. In particular, it has committed to:

1. Ensure everyone working on central government contracts can access literacy and numeracy skills training if they need it. This was agreed as part of the 'Joint statement on access to skills, trade unions and advice in government contracting published last summer
2. Consider making it a requirement that successful contractor(s) have apprentices as a proportion of the project workforce whenever departments and agencies let a new contract. This was announced as part of the 2008 Pre-Budget Report

The guidance is primarily aimed at departments, agencies and other public sector bodies in order to help them make a reality of these commitments. It is likely that the content of this guidance will form some part of the procurement discussions some of your members will have with public clients for new and existing contracts. As such, it is important that your members, many of which are suppliers to the public sector, are made aware of this new guidance.

Notes to editors

1. DIUS and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) merged to create the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) in June 2009. As part of the former DIUS, Government Skills became part of BIS from that date.