I don’t often write the words, “there was an interesting article in the Daily Telegraph the other day”. But there was – behind the paywall unfortunately (I’m not going to explain how, but I accidentally found a way of bypassing it…)
Via a whistle-blower, the newspaper got hold of leaked tender documents from Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust in London, looking for a supplier to deliver stoma services. The contract falls under the Guys and St Thomas’ procurement group, which made it even more interesting as that Trust is reckoned to be one of the best nationally in terms of procurement performance.
The evaluation marks bidders on a scale of 0 to 4 across 35 questions. A group of these is titled “Stonewall UK Workplace Equality Index” and ask about diversity and inclusion strategies, according to the report. In fact, it appears that only one relates directly to the Stonewall Index. It asks, “are you a member of the Stonewall UK Workplace Equality Index”? You score zero if you fail to understand the question, and / or the buyer has no confidence that requirements will be delivered. A score of 4 means a high degree of confidence that the proposal will meet the requirements – a fairly standard scoring system (I prefer 0 to 5 but that’s a detail).
The other four questions are more general, asking about a discrimination and bullying policy, monitoring of bullying based on sexual orientation or gender identity, a transitioning at work policy and a diversity and inclusion strategy.
The report doesn’t say what other questions are asked, or what the weighting is for this section of questions. The whistle-blower said ”the outcome of this is that the NHS might accept a tender from a company offering an inferior product or a higher price based on Stonewall membership. …the NHS is willing to compromise on patient care the promote Stonewall”.
Now since then, word is that this was basically a mistake – I believe bidders have been told to ignore those questions. Someone in procurement got over-enthusiastic or misunderstood what was required. That does suggest the Trust(s) need to look at training for staff who are writing tender documents, and maybe introduce better quality control before documents are issued into the wider world!
But even if this was a simple error, it raised some interesting issues for anyone involved in bringing social value into tenders and evaluation processes.
1. Firstly, national guidance does now require Trusts to give 10 per cent of the evaluation marks to “social value” factors, which can relate to environmental, economic and social issues. That means there may well be situations where a supplier wins a contract despite being more expensive or having a lower quality product than a rival – if the social value marks prove the difference. That has always been obvious, but it may be that some interested parties are only just realising that is a possibility. Indeed, our Minister for Procurement, Jacob Rees-Mogg, has made a few noises that indicate he is not totally sold on the social value concept perhaps because of this issue.
2. Secondly, buyers need to think carefully about the focus in tenders. Social value questions might ask suppliers about a vast range of issues; emissions, waste, use of plastics, employment of disabled staff, involving SMEs, social enterprises or charities in their own supply chain… and so on. The contracting authority really thinks to think about where it focuses; but if it decides that equality and diversity in the supplier’s workforce is the top issue, that is not necessarily “wrong”.
But even if that were the chosen focus, that could include issues of race, disability, age, criminal record (employing ex-offenders) and more. Asking about a discrimination policy or monitoring bullying is fine – but I would suggest we shouldn’t restrict that to “sexual orientation or gender identity”. There are other drivers of discrimination. Questions I have seen in other tenders on this topic have been pretty broadly drawn. It might make sense also to ask about numbers employed (sex, race, etc) at different levels and pay gaps – that has the benefit of being objective too.
3. Thirdly, I don’t believe it is appropriate or (probably) legal to give marks for belonging to a particular proprietary database such as Stonewall (or indeed any other), particularly when that costs money to join. You have to give the bidder the opportunity to demonstrate they can meet the requirement in different ways. So I believe it would be fine to ask, “Explain the actions you have taken to demonstrate your commitment to equality and diversity in your workplace”? You might then provide a few examples to hep bidders - “e.g. membership of Stonewall or other Indexes, participation in national schemes and events, evidence of senior management involvement, data collection and management, routes used for engaging staff, feedback processes, etc”.
Social value is still a very new concept for public procurement. I believe it is the right way to go, but only if it is done properly. We need to identify and spread good practice, share knowledge, and learn what works and what doesn’t. If it starts being seen as illogical, political or dominated by a few hot issues, and elements of our wonderful, unbiased national media pick up on it, then there will be a dangerous backlash. So this is actually quite a useful case study; we can learn from both successful examples, and from the odd occasion when something doesn’t quite work out as planned.