Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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383. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of social clauses included in public procurement contracts since 2013, by year, in tabular form. [20322/20]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The inclusion of strategic, green and social policy considerations in procurement processes is a key feature of the Programme for Government.

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, developed Circular 20/2019: Promoting the use of Environmental and Social Considerations in Public Procurement.

The Circular highlights the potential for Departments to support wider social and environmental aims through public procurement. The Circular provides a clear signal of the direction of travel towards greener public procurement. The Circular also requires Departments to incorporate relevant green procurement measures into their planning and reporting cycles, with reporting arrangements due to commence this year. The Annual Report template is due to be published by the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment later this year.

Further actions taken by the Office of Government Procurement in this area include; the publication of an Information Note on Incorporating Social Considerations into Public Procurement in December 2018 and the establishment of a cross-departmental Social Considerations Advisory Group to bring together officials from policy Departments with procurement practitioners to share best practice and to facilitate the process of incorporating social and environmental considerations into public procurement.

At present, there is no capability on eTenders to centrally record the use of social considerations in procurement competitions. The next generation of EU e-Forms will have the ability to capture high level data in this area and its implementation is being considered in the context of the procurement project for replacing eTenders, currently underway.