Importance of Community Benefit Clauses WORKSHOP ON GUIDE TO COMMUNITY BENEFIT CLAUSES WITHIN PROCUREMENT 17 March 2011 Alan McGregor

THE ISSUE Major physical investment programmes vital for Regenerating Scotland’s communities Providing key business, ICT and transport infrastructure to promote economic growth Always been important to maximise benefits of physical investments To provide employment and skills opportunities for workless people To generate sales for local micro/small businesses Even more important in current and prospective environment where Private sector investment more limited due to keener assessment of risk Public sector resources to tackle worklessness, regeneration and other key agendas much more limited

VALUE OF COMMUNITY BENEFIT CLAUSES Forces public sector clients to think more seriously about type of community benefit they want to secure Raises significantly perceived need by developers and contractors to deliver on community benefit Quantifies extent of community benefit required and gets away from vague commitments Forms basis for a process of performance measurement and management through KPIs to ensure community benefit is being delivered effectively

VALUE OF COMMUNITY BENEFIT CLAUSES (CONT) Enables major public sector clients to benchmark their community benefit demands against other major investment projects Generates a baseline against which public sector clients can seek to drive a process of continuous improvement over time Creates a measure for comparing contractors in effectiveness with which they deliver community benefit

COMMUNITY BENEFIT CLAUSES NOT ENOUGH Work needed on supply side to ensure employable people and micro/small business able to take advantage of opportunities Need good project management of relevant public sector services and links with contractors and subcontractors Essential to have sound system to measure performance of contractors in relation to community benefit clauses

TODAY’S WORKSHOP We will hear from Jo Mitchell about the importance of Community Benefits in Procurement within the policy context Sian Matthews from Construction Skills will take us through their Client-based Approach Guidance which provides advice to local authorities and other bodies procuring construction services to secure employment and skills benefits We finish with a panel discussion providing an opportunity for a wide range of questions to be asked – and answered, hopefully!