Sustainable requirements should be incorporated into the specification. They must be relevant and proportionate to the procurement, and not to the general capacities or qualities of the operator. Buyers can maximise opportunities and outcomes by considering employment, skills and training and its relevance to the procurement in question early so that appropriate requirements can be incorporated into the specification.
Specifications may require that the successful contractor adhere to relevant minimum training and/or qualification standards through the lifetime of the contract, and that staff involved in contract delivery will hold relevant training certificates appropriate to their role.
It is important to be as specific as possible when setting out what benefits you expect to achieve, or requirements you intend to impose on the contract so as to limit the uncertainty for suppliers, such as work experience placements (people), curriculum support activities (careers events), qualifying the workforce (vocational qualification /certification achieved (S/NVQs)), Industry certification gained, Green Skills training (person-hours), apprentice starts, existing apprentices, and apprentice completions, etc.
For example, the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) have developed a series of matrices relating to different types and values of construction contracts that provide a basis for specifying a range of relevant and proportionate training and recruitment requirements. Public bodies could liaise with CITB to set relevant targets appropriate to their contract.
Any relevant employment, skills and training requirements included in the specification should be incorporated into the final contract terms.
While not mandatory labels may be appropriate for certain procurements as underlying criteria may be relevant and can be used as evidence of meeting specific environmental, social or other criteria. Equivalent evidence of meeting these criteria must also be accepted.
A label must be:
If a specific label is requested evidence of compliance with an equivalent standard or label must also be accepted.
The following are some standards and labels which include a focus on employment, skills and training.
Investors in People - Several accreditation programs including ‘We invest in people’, ‘We invest in wellbeing’ and ‘We invest in apprentices.
ISO 10015:2019 - Guidelines for competence management and people development
To gain the maximum impact from use of community benefit requirements, it is important to seek recognised qualifications. Scottish Vocational Qualifications or equivalent may be required.
Relevant SVQs include:
Skills for Work - areas such as Building Services Engineering, Automotive Skills
See the Annex for examples.
