Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012
| Year | 2012 |
Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012
2012 CHAPTER 3
An Act to require public authorities to have regard to economic, social and environmental well-being in connection with public services contracts; and for connected purposes.
[8th March 2012]
Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:-
1 Contracts of relevant authorities
(1) If a relevant authority proposes to procure or make arrangements for procuring the provision of services, or the provision of services together with the purchase or hire of goods or the carrying out of works, by-
(a) entering into a public services contract that is not a contract based on a framework agreement, or
(b) concluding a framework agreement as regards which public services contracts are likely to constitute the greater part by value of the contracts based on the agreement,
it must comply with the requirements in subsections (3), (6) and (7) before starting the process of procurement.
(2) The authority is to be treated for the purposes of subsection (1) as having started the process of procurement as regards what is proposed to be procured as soon as it takes whichever of the following steps is the first to occur-
(a) sending a notice to the Official Journal of the European Union for the purpose of inviting tenders, requests to be selected to tender or to negotiate or requests to participate in relation to a public services contract or framework agreement relating to what is proposed to be procured;
(b) publishing an advertisement seeking offers or expressions of interest in relation to such a contract or framework agreement;
(c) contacting a person in order to seek an offer or expression of interest in relation to such a contract or framework agreement;
(d) contacting a person in order to respond to an unsolicited offer or expression of interest in relation to such a contract or framework agreement;
(e) entering into such a contract or concluding such a framework agreement.
(3) The authority must consider-
(a) how what is proposed to be procured might improve the economic, social and environmental well-being of the relevant area, and
(b) how, in conducting the process of procurement, it might act with a view to securing that improvement.
(4) In subsection (3) "the relevant area" means the area consisting of the area or areas of the one or more relevant authorities on whose behalf a public services contract is, or contracts based on a framework agreement are, intended to be made.
(5) For the purposes of subsection (4) the area of a relevant authority is an area consisting of the area or areas by reference to which the authority primarily exercises its functions, disregarding any areas outside the United Kingdom.
(6) The authority...
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