"Buying social justice" through procurement: An examination of the use of public procurement for advancing employment equality in UK construction

大约三分之一的公共支出用于从私营部门采购商品、工程和服务。因此，社会采购或利用公共支出能力通过合同过程实现额外的社会目的的想法对政策制定者很有吸引力。这可能包括一些措施，比如要求建设公共住房项目的建筑公司向当地失业人员提供学徒或工作机会。虽然立法鼓励通过公共采购“购买社会正义”的想法，但很少有关于其采用程度或有效性的研究，特别是在促进平等方面。因此，那些参与利用公共采购实现额外平等目标的人几乎没有材料来制定基于证据的政策和实践。这项研究将提供第一个证据，证明公共当局如何专门采用社会采购来促进就业中的平等、多样性和包容性（EDI），包括受平等法和社会经济不平等保护的群体。它将重点关注英国的建筑和基础设施行业，这是冠状病毒后经济复苏和增长的关键行业，每年为GDP贡献4130亿英镑，雇佣了9%的劳动力。该行业正面临技能短缺，英国脱欧加剧了这一问题，英国脱欧已将注意力集中在通过招聘更多样化的劳动力来填补劳动力缺口上。建筑业长期以来一直是白人男性主导的行业，尽管有许多EDI倡议，但劳动力中只有13%是女性，6%是黑人和少数民族（BME）工人。我们之前的研究表明，通过公共采购来提高劳动力多样性的要求行动可能是一种有效的变革机制，就像在伦敦奥林匹克公园的建设中所使用的那样，女性和BME工人的数量增加了。近年来，使公共采购能够从采购中实现“社会价值”的法律框架在英国各地发展不同，苏格兰和威尔士的义务比英格兰更强。这项研究将利用这个机会对不同立法框架对社会采购政策和实践的影响进行比较分析。这项研究的一个主要目标是通过确定良好做法的例子和采用这种做法的障碍，对利用社会采购促进就业平等的做法产生影响。该研究将制定建议和工具包，供参与社会采购以实现平等目的的人员使用，无论是作为公共专员/采购员、采购或平等从业人员、承包商、雇员或民间社会代表，他们都已就项目的设计征求过意见，并将通过项目咨询委员会参与研究的发展及其产出。该项目采用了多种方法，包括调查和案例研究。对英格兰、威尔士和苏格兰的公共机构- -地方当局、高等教育机构和住房协会- -进行的一项调查将确定利用社会采购实现就业平等目标的政策和做法的程度。这三个群体都在建设项目上花费了大量的公共资金，并受到法律要求，他们应该考虑这种支出的社会价值和平等影响。将编写案例研究，以突出在英格兰、威尔士和苏格兰三类公共机构的社会采购领域的良好做法，以及一个国家基础设施项目和两个创新的运输当局。将与项目伙伴一起制定关于平等和采购的建议和从业者工具包，通过从业者会议、专员网络和行业沟通渠道（包括期刊文章和社会媒体）广泛传播。

Around a third of all public spending is on procuring goods, works and services from the private sector. Therefore the idea of social procurement, or using public spending power to achieve additional social ends through the contracting process, is attractive to policymakers. This could include measures such as requiring a construction firm building a publicly-funded housing project to offer apprenticeships or jobs to local unemployed people. Although the idea of "buying social justice" through public procurement is encouraged by legislation, there is little research on the extent of its adoption or effectiveness, particularly for promoting equality. Therefore those involved in using public procurement to achieve additional equality objectives have little material on which to develop evidence-based policy and practice.This research will provide the first evidence of how social procurement is being adopted by public authorities specifically to advance equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in employment, including groups protected under equality law and socio-economic inequality. It will focus on the UK construction and infrastructure sector, as a key industry for post-coronavirus economic recovery and growth, contributing £413bn to GDP annually, employing 9% of the workforce. The sector is facing skills shortages, exacerbated by Brexit, which has focused attention on filling labour gaps through the recruitment of a more diverse workforce. Construction has long been a predominantly white, male industry, with a workforce of only 13% women and 6% black and minority ethnic (BME) workers, despite numerous EDI initiatives. Our previous research has shown that demanding action to improve workforce diversity through public procurement can be an effective mechanism for change, as used in the construction of London's Olympic Park where numbers of women and BME workers increased.The legal frameworks that enable public procurement to achieve 'social value' from procurement have developed differently across the UK in recent years, with stronger obligations in Scotland and Wales than in England. The research will use this opportunity to undertake a comparative analysis of the impact of the differing legislative frameworks on policy and practice on social procurement. A main objective of the research is to have an impact on practice in the use of social procurement to advance employment equality, through identifying examples of good practice and barriers to its uptake. The research will develop recommendations and a toolkit for use by those involved in social procurement for equality ends - whether as public commissioners/buyers, procurement or equality practitioners, contractors, representatives of employees or civil society - who have been consulted on the design of the project and will be involved in the development of the research and its outputs through a project advisory board. The project uses mixed methods, including a survey and case studies. A survey of public bodies in England, Wales and Scotland - local authorities, higher education institutions and housing associations - will establish the extent of policy and practice on the use of social procurement to achieve employment equality objectives. All three groups spend large amounts of public money on construction projects, and are subject to legal requirements that they should consider the social value and equality implications of such spending. Case studies will be produced to highlight good practice in the area of social procurement from the three types of public bodies in England, Wales and Scotland, as well as a national infrastructure project and two innovative transport authorities. Recommendations and a practitioner toolkit on equality and procurement will be developed with project partners, to be disseminated widely, through a practitioner conference, commissioner networks and industry communication channels including journal articles and social media.