URBACT PROJECT – PARTNERS SEARCH

SOCIAL CLAUSES IN PUBLIC PROCUREMENT

Avilés City Council is preparing a bid for the last URBACT projects call, and wishes to collaborate with other European local and regional institutions interested in new approaches to public procurement in the context of the social needs of the territories.

Avilés (84.000 inhabitants) is an industrial and port city in the north coast of Spain. Avilés City Council has experience in participating as partner and as leader in EU co-funded projects, specially in the social and culture areas.

For the last two year a local experience on a new approach to public procurement has put Avilés Council in the first row of interest for other local authorities in Spain and elsewhere. The new scheme is called Social Clauses in Public Procurement,and is officially approved as the new legal procedure (called ICSA) to all kinds of public procurement done by the Council.

If your organization is interested in participating in this project, please use the following contact as soon as possible (before October 30, 2013).

Mr. Jorge Juan MANRIQUE

Avilés City Council – European and International Programmes

Mobile +34-637-780436

jjmanrique@ayto-aviles.es

Context:

The measures developed in the ICSA over these last four years reflect an innovatory approach to the management of public resources, the social relevance of which is shown by the fact that it:

· Favours integrated growth by promoting the employment rate of people with the greatest difficulties in accessing the job market, thus facilitating social and territorial cohesion. thus, contributing to achieving Europe 2020 Strategy goals.

· Generates direct personal benefits for those in disadvantaged situations, enabling introduction to the workforce under dignified conditions, improvements to training and the acquiring of professional experience, access to Social Welfare system benefits, and improvements to self-esteem and personal and social development.

· Has been applied in 77 tenders and enabled the hiring of 156 people in companies awarded Avilés City Council contracts. 62.2% of the aforementioned were women, 30% disabled persons and 26.3% long-term unemployed, all of whom would have found it very difficult to find employment without the mediation of this municipal instruction.

· Forms part of the set of measures that go to make up the Avilés Territorial Employment Programme and endows municipal active employment policies with greater coherence.

· Forges links between employment and inclusion policies, promoting an inclusive development model in which people become the main stakeholders.

· Contributes to modernizing work practices within Local Administration, improving inter-departmental cooperation between municipal services and generating new professional attitudes more conducive to working with management models that include social benefits.

· Socially Responsible Public Procurement has become a transversal municipal policy, stimulating social responsibility practices in companies in the territory in terms of equal opportunities, job quality, occupational health and safety and sustainable conduct.

· Promotes compliance with the law by companies seeking to win municipal contracts, appreciating those companies in award processes that display improvements on the legal requirements, whether these refer to environmental, social and equal opportunity matters or job quality.

· Contributes to de-mythologizing the stigma of those with most difficulty in joining the labour market owing to different circumstances (sex, age, little training, lack of qualifications, long-term unemployment, disability, etc.).

· Encourages different territorial agents to set up a nodal network from a perspective of shared responsibility in the struggle against unemployment and exclusion, thus advancing social cohesion.

· Has the potential to multiply its results on being easily reproducible by any Public Administration and in different territorial contexts.

Jorge Juan MANRIQUE

AYUNTAMIENTO DE AVILÉS - AVILES CITY COUNCIL

PROGRAMAS EUROPEOS E INTERNACIONALES

Ruiz Gómez, 21 E-33402 Avilés (Asturias - ESPAÑA - SPAIN)

T+34-985-542200 · M+34-637-780436

jjmanrique[a]ayto-aviles.es | http://internacional.aviles.es