Decision details

1.     That the appointment of Councillor Bev Craig (Manchester) and Senior Responsible Officer , to be confirmed, be designated to act as sponsors to work with each of the Greater Manchester Local Authorities to identify how working at a Greater Manchester level can add value to the shared objectives and declared Greater Manchester Strategy priorities; and to garner wider participation across Greater Manchester anchor institutions including Transport for Greater Manchester, Greater Manchester Police and the Health system.

2.   That the successful progress in this policy area would require significant investment be acknowledged and that a further report  would be submitted to the GMCA setting out the resourcing challenge and quantified options.

3.   That the proposal to revise the GMCA Sustainability Decision Tool for use upstream as part of business case development (for potential adoption by others) be approved.

4.   That the exploration of options for developing a Greater Manchester ‘Brokerage’ platform, with the ability to provide a live environment matching supplier offers with ‘system’ asks, be approved.

5.   That the adoption of the following principles be approved and that this report be commended for approval and adoption by all Greater Manchester Councils in order to build on existing good work on social value and to significantly increase the collective Greater Manchester approach to social value, with the potential to make a real step change in the role of public procurement in supporting the delivery of GMS priorities:

•     Restate a strong presumption that social value forms part of the evaluation on all procurement over threshold.

•   Building on the Greater Manchester Social Value Framework, develop an approach which can be aggregated at a GM level for capturing bid offers as contractual commitments, providing contract management performance data and common standards for city region scale reporting.

•   Adopt definitions to allow development of plans for capturing consistent metrics (See Appendix 1) for a set of key Greater Manchester Priorities: 

1.   Real Living Wage

2.   Principles of Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter

3.   Carbon Reduction – net zero by 2038 (Greater Manchester) / 2050 (UK)

4.   Tacking Inequality (protected characteristics)

5.   Economic Diversity (Small Medium Enterprise and Voluntary Community Social Enterprise)

6.   Local Spend (Greater Manchester based businesses)

•   Adopt a policy for all procurements over the regulated threshold (unless evidenced as legally and commercially unviable):

a.   By 2023 we will only contract with organisations who agree, themselves and for their 1st line sub-contractors, to pay Real Living Wage at date of contract or within 1 year of contracting.

b.   By 2023 we will only contract with organisations who have signed up to be supporters of the Good Employment Charter (or equivalent indicators) at date of contract or within 1 year of contracting.

c.   By 2023 we will only contract with organisations who have a credible plan to become carbon neutral by 2050 in place at date of contract or within 1 year of contracting.

•  Agree that the policy goal should be to increase our supplier diversity by:

a.   Reserving relevant ‘below threshold’ contracts for Voluntary Community Social Enterprise sector organisations or Greater Manchester based Small Medium Enterprises (unless the requirement cannot be fulfilled by these markets).

b.   Increasing the proportion of spend (with primary contractors and 1st line subcontractors) from Greater Manchester public procurement that is spent within Greater Manchester.

c.   Make plans to monitor and report on the diversity of the ownership or leadership of the organisations we work with.