Voscur are responding to this consultation by building on our long-established, far-reaching knowledge of and support for the VCSE sector. We have, over the last thirty years, been pivotal in allowing Bristol to build and benefit from a thriving VCSE sector. We know that public procurement can go further in enabling VCSE organisations to be a part of providing solutions that are long-term, sustainable and achieve societal change.

Key Items to note

• The VCSE sector wants to work with the public sector as equal partners, and is keen to embed principles from the recently-launched Civil Society Covenant in to a framework for partnership working. It is crucial that Public Procurement and the Civil Society Covenant are aligned within the government’s own plans, and there are clear ways for VCSE organisations to be involved with both.
• The VCSE sector is frequently left behind or left out of opportunities due to current public procurement models, which are usually designed to prioritise and select large, national-level organisations.
• We know that committing to coproduction with community organisations is the key to enabling the public sector to determine service design and choose appropriate service providers that can actually result in positive change for people and communities. However, despite pockets of good practice, there is generally a lack of commitment to or investment in coproduction approaches with community organisations.
• Procurement rules and frameworks currently act as a major barrier to the true participation of VCSE organisations in either the design or delivery of public services.  
• VCSE organisations are not just service providers; they are creators of societal impact and real change, equity and community resilience.  VCSE organisations need to be embedded in every stage of a commissioning cycle, from identifying needs to codesign to selection to evaluation.

A framework that enables VCSE organisations to be chosen fairly and with equity

Voscur is supportive of proposals to increase VCSE organisations’ active and real participation in public contracts. We strongly encourage the Government to go beyond transparency and reporting and to take active, accountable and rapid steps to:

• Reduce the known barriers that exist and prevent small and micro VCSE organisations from accessing procurement processes, ensuring processes are clear, fair, inclusive and proportionate. Our work as one of the collaborative leaders of and the host organisation of the BNSSG Brokerage Framework in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire is an example of great practice in this field.
• Put in place clear rules that ring-fence opportunities and public sector contracts for VCSE organisations. Enable civil servants, including those at local, regional and national level, to learn and understand the difference between large national charities and grassroots community organisations – and to plan for contracts that enables the latter by removing the known barriers.
• Enable civil servants and commissioners in the public sector to all play their part in building the supply chain of VCSE organisations by understanding – and investing in – a pipeline approach. Introduce ‘grant-first’ principles and scaled requirements to enable micro and hyper-local VCSE organisations to participate.

• Ensure procurement processes allow for full cost recovery and annual inflationary uplift in grants/contracts, to enable the VCSE sector to compete with other sectors fairly.
• Encourage partnership, co-design and co-delivery between larger and micro VCSE organisations, enabling them to draw on their own individual strengths and avoiding competition. Enable more investment in partnerships between VCSE organisations, and with public sector, including through inclusion funds to pay people for their time and expertise.
• Name VCSE organisations as preferred suppliers in areas where social value, community engagement, and tailored support are crucial.

Social Value and Local Impact

• Currently, Social Value in procurement, as it is implemented, leaves many VCSE organisations unable to bid for contracts as it requires providers to promise additional activity which they often cannot afford to do. By doing so, procurement processes are skewed to private sector, rather than recognising that VCSE-led services have inherent social value within them. Reviewing how Social Value is implemented within procurement would significantly improve VCSE organisations’ ability to bid for contracts.
• Ensure better systems are put in place to hold to account the commitments made by private or corporate sector providers at the point of procurement in regards to Social Value. We are aware that a number of VCSE organisations which we support are often included on a business’ bid but their Social Value commitments – such as grant funding, pro bono or volunteering support to that VCSE organisation – do not materialise. Public sector bodies need to be able to monitor the delivery of Social Value commitments made by private sector providers.
• Commissioners and civil servants should be trained to ensure that new social value criteria and metrics are meaningfully co-designed with the VCSE sector, taking in to account the value of people’s lived experiences.

Address the impact of competition on the VCSE sector

• The VCSE sector shows many signs of divisions caused by the impact of commissioning processes that have caused them to compete with organisations with which they should be working in partnership. It is imperative that the Public Procurement framework seeks to prevent such divisions, and support VCSE infrastructure organisations to help rebuild the sector towards a partnership ethos.

• Having targets for and requiring the publishing of direct spend with the VCSE sector is hugely welcomed. However, we strongly advocate these should be separated between large national charities and local grass roots community based VCSE organisations in order to be useful and meaningful data or insights.

Data, Reporting, and Accountability

• It is vital that monitoring or reporting mechanisms are proportionate and accessible, preventing burden on smaller VCSE organisations.
• We support the annual reporting on VCSE contract awards, disaggregated by organisation size and type and by geographical footprint.
• We support the development of a national VCSE classification framework to ensure consistent data collection and analysis across the public sector as a whole.

Payments

• Late payment by suppliers has reinforced power imbalances and prevented smaller, local VCSE organisations from being sub-contractors as they simply cannot take the cash flow risk.
• In addition, we urge public sector institutions to come away from payment in arrears (for example, Combined Authorities) or payment by results if they wish to create a framework that is truly inclusive of the VCSE sector.