The Northern Ireland Procurement Policy gives particular emphasis to the role that procurement should play in tackling unemployment. It recommended that the Procurement Board conduct a pilot project to examine the feasibility and effect of facilitating the unemployed into work through public sector contracts.

The aim of the pilot was to encourage employers to recruit and train people, who have been unemployed for at least 3 months, to work on contracts with Government Departments, their Agencies, NDPBs and Public Corporations. The School of Policy Studies, University of Ulster at Jordanstown prepared the Final Evaluation Report on the pilot.

Pilot Project Final Evaluation Report (pdf, 217kb)

This case study is a synopsis of the Pilot Project designed to create opportunities to facilitate the unemployed into work through public sector contracts. The Pilot established a model that can be used to integrate wider sustainable development goals, where appropriate, within the public procurement process and which includes a stipulation that the Conditions of Contract incorporate sustainable development considerations.

The model achieves integration without the chosen sustainable development activity forming part of the evaluation process to identify the Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT). Only in the event of two or more tenders being judged equal in the identification of the MEAT will the tenderers’ proposals for sustainable development activity be taken into consideration to decide the award of the contract.

Pilot Case Study on Integration (Word, 78kb)