Exempt some public services from EU procurement rules, says NAVCA
Some public services are best suited to being delivered by organisations that are rooted and based within the communities served and so should be excluded from EU procurement rules, a group that represents local support and development organisations in England has claimed.
In its response – coordinated with Citizens Advice – to the EU consultation on modernising public procurement, NAVCA also argued that it should be made easier for statutory bodies to include social value clauses within procurement processes.
The group said these changes to the legislation would be of great help to local charities and voluntary organisations.
Its response identified a number of problems not for profit SMEs have with public bodies’ procurement processes, including:
- Processes that are disproportionate to the value of the contract and are expensive and time-consuming for not for profit SMEs
- Processes that require a significant investment of resource to complete with a low chance of return
- Processes that are based on an inflexible and highly risk-averse approach to procurement
- A lack of joined up working and differences in approaches, culture, objectives and priorities between the various officers involved in the whole commissioning process, from those who take part in the earlier stages of a commissioning process to the technical procurement officers
- Competing and conflicting policy objectives. “Whilst there has been an attempt to use procurement to achieve policy objectives in public services, in reality this has proved difficult to achieve.”
The submission said that despite previous attempts to address these issues, fundamental problems remain. These include that “public bodies do not have a good enough understanding of the market of not for profit SMEs, find the current regulatory framework overly complex, and do not use the flexibilities that are currently available to them due to high degrees of risk aversion”.
It warned that this meant many not for profit SMEs had lost or were at risk of losing the funding which enables them to continue operating.
“This produces a reduced market and therefore a less competitive situation, rather than a more competitive one,” NAVCA said. “The wider impacts are the losses of invaluable assets to local communities, including the economic, social and environmental contribution of not for profit SMEs.”
Neil Cleeveley, NAVCA's Director of Policy and Communications, said: "EU procurement rules have a massive impact on charities and voluntary organisations, which are increasingly involved in the delivery of public services. We need to have a say on this consultation as it is a vital issue for so many voluntary and community sector groups.
"Too many public bodies follow the full blown procurement procedures when they don't need to. The review and consultation shows that the EU is aware of the problems many local charities and small businesses have with commissioning."
