Sustainability requirements including Fair Work First requirements should be incorporated into the specification. They must be relevant to the particular procurement, and not to the general capacities or qualities of the operator.
When developing the specification, a variety of expertise may be available to develop clear and precise requirements including subject matter experts, such as human resources colleagues, Equality and Diversity specialists, and trade union representatives, who could assist by drawing out specific Fair Work First criteria if this is appropriate to the contract.
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 by tailoring the model Invitation to Tender wording and/or giving an individual Fair Work First criterion a specific weighting. Relevant Fair Work First requirements in the specification should be incorporated into the final contract terms.
Please refer back to Determining relevance and proportionality at this point and then to Annex B for specific risks in respect of the contracted workforce that may be addressed in the procurement.
It is possible to require the real Living Wage to be paid to workers on public contracts, where:
Payment of the real Living Wage should not be used to limit pay rates, and where sector bargained rates have been agreed these should be applied provided they are not below the real Living Wage.
Along with the specific Fair Work First criteria and payment of at least the real Living Wage outlined in the specification, it may be helpful to signpost a range of useful information sources which are listed at Annex C.
Where bidders are planning to use workers based outside the UK, then local living wage rates would apply, whatever they are in the workers’ locality.
Labels can be used as evidence of meeting the Fair Work First criteria where they are underpinned by a number of the criteria outlined in the specification. Equivalent evidence of meeting these criteria must also be accepted.
Labels are a specific term and how they should be used is set out in Regulation 44 of the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015.
The use of labels needs to be approached with care. A label must be:
While a public body can ask for what they are buying to have an independently verifiable label which certifies that it meets specific environmental, social or other characteristics, a particular label should only be requested where all of its certification characteristics correspond to a procurement.
Accreditations can be a form of evidence of compliance with fair work practices and award criteria, however accreditations will not individually reflect Fair Work First in its entirety. A public body and suppliers can effectively support the Fair Work First criteria without being accredited to any accreditation schemes.
Accreditations which reflect aspects of Fair Work First criteria include, but are not limited to:
Bidders should still be expected to describe and demonstrate how they will commit to all Fair Work First criteria included in the Invitation to Tender, even if that means stating why one or more of the criteria does not apply to them. Example ITT questions to help buyers implement Fair Work First, and payment of at least the real Living Wage in their own procurement processes can be found in Annex F.
