Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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87. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if public purchasers, including local authorities, are precluded from using social clauses in public procurement contracts until such time as the Working Group on Social Clauses in the Office of Public Procurement has completed its pilot projects, and decided what conditions to insert into the Government form of contract, they are required by law to use; and the scope such bodies have to use social clauses in the interim. [8351/15]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Social clauses in contracts encourage suppliers to perform actions focussed on broader policy considerations. They can be used in public procurement in cases where they are targeted at factoring into the procurement process consideration of social issues such as employment opportunities, equal opportunities and social inclusion.  In order to be compatible with EU law, they must be made known to all interested parties at tender stage and must not restrict participation by contractors from other Member States.

In order to ensure that social clauses do not discriminate, it is best to use general categories of beneficiary (e.g. long-term unemployed, trainees, young people) and then target the social benefits through 'supply-side' activities (e.g. training and job-matching services). Targeted social clauses are effective in cases where they are actively supported by supply-side actions and good monitoring and evaluation processes taken by the Department or Agency with the relevant policy remit.

As the Deputy is aware, I announced the establishment of a Social Clauses Project Group led by the Office of Government Procurement (OGP) to pro-actively seek projects with a view to including social clauses to ensure those awarded contracts contribute to employment or training opportunities for long term unemployed. In order to assist to OGP in this task, sectors have nominated projects for inclusion in the pilot from their respective procurement pipelines of projects for 2015.

The Government favours a targeted approach to the use of social clauses focused on contracts where employers are likely to be hiring additional workers to deliver the contract.  This should mitigate the risk of displacing workers already in employment while offering the opportunity of assisting with labour activation measures for the long-term unemployed.

Overall, OGP wants to gain practical experience from the pilot on the effective use of social clauses that will assist in the development of a robust and effective social procurement framework. The OGP will review the approach and issue guidance.

In the interim it is permissible to include social clauses provided they are not designed to disadvantage non-local contractors and they form part of the core purpose of the contract and must provide a benefit to the authority at award stage.