The report is based on interviews with local authority procurement leads, and a review of procurement policies and other documents within the local authorities.
Some sub-regional governments in England are resorting to 'soft' legislation in order to develop good work practices in their local labour markets. The study analysed the procurement practices of local authorities on four Mayoral Combined authorities, one of which had a Good Work Charter. The study found that a number of cross-cutting themes emerged: good work is commended, not required; legal risk and uncertainty limits what LADs are willing to try through procurement; resources and staffing limit capacity to do more; there are gaps between policy aims and practical realities; and political backing is important.
There is an increasing focus and amount of work being undertaken to increase the local value of LAD spend. The focus is usually on social value and increasing spend going to local suppliers. But increasingly there are attempts to secure improvements in local employment conditions and practices through linking good work dimensions to local authority procurement.
The biggest challenges to these efforts is the lack of policy coherence and resource constraints. At a national level, whilst social value and good work are identified as Government commitments, there have been delays in legislation to both the procurement and employment aspects of this. Without these, sub national authorities - MCAs and LADs - are wary of the extent of how far they can go in including stipulations in their contracting processes. Where there has been the greatest political coherence, in Greater Manchester, both the MCA and local authorities have been able to make the greatest strides in linking good work conditions to local procurement. The lack of resources, particularly in terms of staffing, posed challenges for the successful implementation, including in particular the monitoring, of social public procurement. Our findings thereby seem to support previous findings that point to the importance of political commitment and leadership and resources and extend these particularly to practices of linking public procurement and good work
