Procurement and Community Benefits

We are committed to using procurement to contribute to the regeneration of Nottinghamshire. We will do this by ensuring that where practicable the money we spend on procuring goods, works and services benefits the people, communities and economy of the county.

Find out more about Nottinghamshire business and the economy

Our skills, enterprise and business support team aims to help you to realise regeneration benefits through procurement, we will:

1.support Nottinghamshire-based small to medium enterprises (SMEs) – in other words, those with less than 250 employees - to compete fairly and equally for the Council’s business.

2.build community benefit clauses (also called social clauses) into our procurement contracts.

We will engage actively with Nottinghamshire suppliers to encourage a diverse, competitive and innovative supply market and the effective use of the supply chain.  We will achieve this by:

• organising training and information sessions for Nottinghamshire SMEs in response to identified needs (please use feedback form )
• supporting Nottinghamshire SMEs through the modernisation of procurement, for example with e-procurement
• producing guidance to make our procurement processes open and transparent
• increasing awareness of forthcoming procurement opportunities by publishing them on our website and advertising opportunities to a wide range of suppliers
• publishing details of contract awards on our website to give suppliers the chance to become sub-contractors
• educating procurers about the impact of their buying decisions on the local economy
• providing feedback to unsuccessful bidders to enable them to address any weaknesses.

Community benefit clauses

The County Council is able to use procurement to help deliver some of our core policy objectives.  This means our procurement activities should contribute to the economic, social and environmental well being of the county.

For more information about tackling economic disadvantage

The County’s community strategy allows us to include community benefits which:

• lower unemployment and provide good quality jobs
• create economically successful areas
• develop safer and stronger communities
• develop healthy communities
• provide good facilities for young and old.

So, for example, in a construction contract we could include a community benefit clause which requires the employment of young trainees or unemployed people.

Design and specification

If a community benefit clause is relevant to the product or service being procured and helps the County Council deliver its key policy objectives, it can be included in the contract specification.  

Selecting suppliers

The County Council wants to do business with Nottinghamshire SMEs that provide quality goods, works and services at a cost that provides the best overall value.  We cannot guarantee any supplier future business or discriminate in favour of Nottinghamshire SMEs during any procurement.  However, we would like to break down any barriers you may be experiencing in doing business with us.  The ways in which we are doing this are listed above.

For more information on Selling to Nottinghamshire County Council

Evaluating tenders

Community benefit clauses included in the contract specification can be scored as part of the evaluation of a tender.  

Contract management and supplier development

The County Council will monitor contracts to ensure that community benefit clauses are implemented and to assess the use of the supply chain.

Sources of help and further information

(If you have queries about a specific tendering opportunity or how to complete the tender documentation, contact the named council officer detailed on the website or in the tender documentation. If you are unsuccessful and wish to seek feedback, contact the named County Council officer detailed in the tender documentation.)

If you are an SME based in Nottinghamshire and would like assistance to develop your capacity to do business with the County Council, please use the feedback form which can be provided by the Skills, enterprise & business support

Print a copy of our document Procurement and community benefits [Word 39KB]

View the document Procurement and community benefits [PDF 351KB]